[HN Gopher] The U.S. Army tried portable nuclear power at remote...
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The U.S. Army tried portable nuclear power at remote bases 60 years
ago
Author : bcaulfield
Score : 88 points
Date : 2021-08-31 21:37 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| tkojames wrote:
| The army straight up scares me with nukes... Air force is barely
| better. The USA navy knows what they are doing with reactors.. at
| they safe so no clue. But I am not trusting anybody in USA
| military except for the navy to deal with nuclear reactors.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| This reminds me of SL-1, an experimental reactor that was meant
| to be used in the arctic circle. Part of the operation of the
| reactor required manually lifting a control rod a few inches out
| of the reactor. However, possibly just to see what would happen
| or as a suicide attempt, they removed the rod too far and the
| reactor immediately exploded and killed 3 operators. At least,
| those are some intriguing theories about why the control rod was
| removed too far, but in fairness we really don't know what they
| were thinking and it may have simply been a mistake. Although a
| properly trained operator mistakenly lifting a heavy control rod
| too far begs more explanation. Whatever the case, it is an
| intriguing story.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-
| Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Between this and some other stories from early nuclear age, it
| makes me feel as if that system was designed by software
| engineers.
|
| If it's known that the control rod is supposed to be between 0
| and X inches out, and going past Y inches (Y > X) will likely
| cause a fatal failure, one would expect someone to machine a
| piece of metal that makes in impossible to move the rod further
| out than Y inches.
|
| I read those accounts of people manipulating nuclear reactors
| by hand, and can't stop but think: this is dumb, even for 1950s
| era technology.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| That manually operated control rod was sophisticated compared
| to some of the earlier experiments. They used to stack bricks
| around a chunk of uranium, so the bricks would reflect
| neutrons back at the uranium. Eventually, once you stack
| enough bricks around the uranium it goes super critical and
| just goes nuts. They used to manually search out this super
| critical threshold by manually stacking bricks and then
| slowly move that final brick towards and away from the
| uranium and watch it balance on the line between sub critical
| and super critical.
|
| One day, someone dropped the brick and there was a blue
| flash. Lots of neutrons were released that day. People died
| from radiation exposure soon after.
|
| There's also a story about a fuel rod getting jammed, so they
| tried to force it with a crane and ended up breaking it in
| half, spilling highly radioactive water all over the place,
| and then the fuel rod catches on fire because it's not being
| cooled anymore. It's comical how quickly these disasters
| escalate.
|
| Read https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-
| Disasters-... , it's accurate and relatively fun given the
| subject. One of the chapters is titled "The US Government
| almost never lost nuclear weapons", which I find subtly
| amusing.
| leoc wrote:
| > it makes me feel as if that system was designed by software
| engineers
|
| SL-1 feels as if it was designed and operated by Kerbals. TFA
| actually does mention the reactor and the accident
|
| > SL-1, a stationary low-power nuclear reactor in Idaho, blew
| up during refueling, killing three men.
|
| but that barely hints at just how eye-widening the whole saga
| was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOt7xDKxmCM
|
| To be fair, it is apparently considered likely that the
| overextraction of the rod was a deliberate murder-suicide.
| But yes, it seems that there's a reason that the US Navy
| still has a nuclear power program and the Army doesn't (
| https://www.historynet.com/going-nuclear-idaho-falls.htm
| seems good; I am not an expert).
| HPsquared wrote:
| There was a lot of time pressure in those days of the Cold
| War. The other side was also working rapidly without much
| concern for safety.
|
| It was probably a consciously-made balance of risk, with
| relatively "minor" accidents here and there as a result of
| rushed development vs. the risks associated with getting
| overtaken by the Soviets. Technological superiority,
| particularly in that field, was a major factor in the
| balance of power at that time.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Or safety education has improved far more than nuclear
| technologies did in the past 70 years.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| The SL-1 was part of the Army Nuclear Power Program, same as
| the reactors talked about in this post. [1]
|
| [1] https://whatisnuclear.com/reactor_history.html#the-army-
| nucl...
| crmd wrote:
| > Those in favor of mobile nuclear power for the battlefield
| claim it will provide nearly unlimited, low-carbon energy without
| the need for vulnerable supply convoys.
|
| Imagine the situation we would be in if the US military had been
| using nuclear power supplies at (formerly) our bases in
| Afghanistan.
|
| I'm a fan of nuclear power but battlefields are the last place I
| want to see it.
| tda wrote:
| This is what I think the most often overlooked problem inherent
| to nuclear power in any form: whenever you create a nuclear
| reactor, you are betting on future people to handle it
| correctly. And not only during it's operational life of say
| 20-30 years, but also during the ages or millennia afterwards.
| This is quite a risky bet, as no one can predict the future.
| And centuries without war and/or other catastrophic events have
| been quite rare.
| Aachen wrote:
| > whenever you create a nuclear reactor, you are betting on
| future people to handle it correctly
|
| The youth these days really isn't so different from the youth
| thirty years ago
| jokoon wrote:
| I'm not an nuclear engineer, but I bet it would be easier to
| deploy more nuclear energy with a many smaller reactor.
|
| Pro: smaller reactors would be faster to build, as conventional
| nuclear reactors are large and often use specific techs. They
| would be built in higher quantities than larger reactors and thus
| allow more nuclear power generation.
|
| Con: economies of scale might mean it generates less electricity
| overall.
| cratermoon wrote:
| There's also this: Review of Manned Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion
| Program https://nuke.fas.org/space/anp-gao1963.pdf [pdf]
| aqrre wrote:
| I want one in my car... If they could make them a bit smaller.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I have always thought it disappointing that safe RTGs are not a
| more common technology. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to
| design one that could be buried in the ground outside, or under,
| your house, which could provide probably a lifetime of power.
| m4rtink wrote:
| RTGs are generally pretty expensive due to the exotermic
| isotopes used. Also it needs cooling to get the needed thermal
| gradient for electricity production, so just burying it into
| ground would likely not work. The peltier thermocouples also
| degrade over time.
|
| And lastly, there were some nasty radiation incidents where ex
| Soviet RTGs were left unattended and random scavengers managed
| to open the casing, getting lethal doses of radiation in some
| cases. I guess this could be exasperated by the small and
| mobile size of RTGs.
| stadium wrote:
| The public data on the stationary SM-1A rated it as 20MW and was
| built around the same timeframe. It's in a remote, low population
| location. The base was decommissioned and the reactor is still
| there, soon to be decommissioned according to the link.
|
| https://www.nab.usace.army.mil/SM-1A/
| andyxor wrote:
| the most successful "portable" nuclear reactors are those on
| nuclear submarines, they have been in continuous operation for
| more than 60 years with very few incidents
|
| "American naval reactors starting with the S1W and iterations of
| designs have operated without incidents since USS Nautilus
| (SSN-571) launch in 1954"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_submarine
| nabla9 wrote:
| In the 70s USN subs had 4 accidents. There was three spills
| irradiated water and one contamination accident.
|
| Russians have even more reactor years in submarines and
| icebreakers, and cargo ships. They have even floating nuclear
| power station. They have had two major reactor accidents (we
| know about).
|
| Military reactors are expensive to operate even when they are
| quit safe. You need highly trained people 24/7.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| I'd assume civilian reactors wouldn't have constraints
| nuclear submarine usage imposes, and perhaps could be
| engineered to be safe?
|
| Seems strange to bet against ingenuity.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It seems to me that military reactors have better safety
| record than commercial despite accidents. I just listed the
| accidents.
|
| The safety becomes with cost and performance limit. It's
| hard to see how smaller nuclear reactors are significantly
| better than gas turbines in commercial use. The cost comes
| down with the size.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| > they have been in continuous operation for more than 60 years
| with very few incidents
|
| The Soviet Union had many accidents, their MO is to pretend it
| never happened.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| We should have more nuclear powerplants. I think 75 years ago it
| was assumed that by now everybody and their cat would have
| enormously powerful and cheap nuclear generators for their house,
| flying car etc. It's a pity the technology has stagnated and only
| Iron Man can afford it.
| hanniabu wrote:
| It'd be nice, but the weak link will always be humans. In an
| idea world there's no issues, but when you start extending
| beyond engineered lifespan, changing regulation to allow looser
| safety tolerances, changing regulation on how tests are
| performed so that you can still pass them, etc then it becomes
| an accident waiting to happen. I'd like to have them just as
| much as everyone else, but history has shown that we can't be
| trusted to act responsibly.
|
| > When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20
| times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused
| radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test
| of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43455859
|
| > The proposal comes as most of the nation's nuclear power
| plants, which were designed and built in the 1960s or 1970s,
| are reaching the end of their original 40- to 50-year operating
| licenses. Many plant operators have sought licenses to extend
| the operating life of their plants past the original deadlines,
| even as experts have warned that aging plants come with
| heightened concerns about safety.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/climate/nrc-nuclear-inspe...
|
| > The nuclear industry is also pushing the NRC to cut down on
| safety inspections and rely instead on plants to police
| themselves. The NRC "is listening" to this advice, the
| Associated Press reported last month. "Annie Caputo, a former
| nuclear-energy lobbyist now serving as one of four board
| members appointed or reappointed by President Donald Trump,
| told an industry meeting this week that she was 'open to self-
| assessments' by nuclear plant operators, who are proposing that
| self-reporting by operators take the place of some NRC
| inspections."
|
| https://newrepublic.com/article/153465/its-not-just-pork-tru...
| ElFitz wrote:
| > The nuclear industry is also pushing the NRC to cut down on
| safety inspections and rely instead on plants to police
| themselves.
|
| The same way the FAA allowed airplane manufacturers to decide
| wether their planes needed re-certifying when they changed
| them, and allowed them to certify themselves?
|
| Because that's also how we got the Boeing 737 Max.
| roenxi wrote:
| And if we held cars to the same safety standard as the 737
| Max actually achieved, I suspect nobody would be allowed to
| drive. The odds of something going wrong were only just on
| the wrong side of 1 in a million.
|
| You're talking about a lapse in safety relative to an
| industry that is 2nd only to Nuclear power in doing no
| harm. In absolute terms they were still reasonably safe.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Word on the street is, bananas leak more radiation than
| functioning nuclear power plants.
|
| I dont think I would trust one in my home, given flood risks
| and all, but a megawatt power plant for the neighborhood
| wouldn't be amiss.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >bananas leak more radiation than functioning nuclear power
| plants.
|
| Keyword there is "functioning". I believe GP's point is
| that the public can't be trusted to maintain household-
| scale nuclear reactors to the same level of safety that
| large-scale operators with competent staff and chains of
| responsibility can.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Yes, the processes would be different. A misfunctioning
| gas furnace will kill everyone from CO poisoning, and
| wood fireplaces are even more dangerous.
|
| Surely an in-home reactor would require safeties of an
| appropriate degree. Perhaps those would make in-home
| nuclear infeasible, I wouldn't know. With a bit of
| careful planning, any given house could easily take out
| half a city block or more given someone with intent to
| cause harm, though, and without knowing the actual amount
| of radioactive material in any given in-hime reactor, I
| couldn't begin to compare.
|
| Edit: this is why I am a whimsical commenter on the
| internet and not the person in charge of whether or not
| we give redneck engineers nuclear reactors.
| r00fus wrote:
| I mean, by all means, I'd be a huge fan of Batman's "nuclear
| batteries" - but not if they haven't solved the shielding
| problem.
|
| Any news on better shielding or safer designs that might allow
| replacing a house or car's power plant?
| akvadrako wrote:
| You can buy nuclear batteries right now and I'm not aware of
| any "shielding problem". Some types of radiation are easy to
| block.
| yuy910616 wrote:
| I've heard there is a book about this why we don't have such a
| thing - the book largely blames it on the green movement I
| think...
|
| Where is my flying car I believe is the title. Earlier this
| year I saw a book review from the star slater codex substack.
| Didn't read it tho
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I mean it kind of seems ridiculous to think we could have
| radioactive material fissioning at our house or in our car.
| My neighbor barely takes out their trash.
|
| If that is thanks to the Green Movement, then let me thank
| the Green Movement.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Your neighbor may have problems handling their trash, but
| they for sure have countless dangerous chemicals around
| their house, and yet they live safely. I'm not even talking
| about the obvious (household cleaning agents) - their
| fridge and AC unit likely have pretty nasty substances
| circulating inside.
|
| The trick is, as always, to make a sealed system and scare
| people into not messing with it.
| mrfusion wrote:
| There a pretty substantial amount of mercury in CFL
| bulbs.
| pope_meat wrote:
| Until it's time to dispose of the old fridge, and then
| your idiot neighbor just opens it up and releases it in
| to the air, because proper disposal requires a fee he
| doesn't want to pay, and then breaks down the fridge to
| tiny pieces to throw in the regular trash.
|
| This has happened, a lot.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The gases used as refrigerants are actually not that
| dangerous at all, which is why they're used in such
| situations. If the thin pipes of your fridge or AC leak
| all their refrigerant in your home you'll be fine. Maybe
| have some difficulty breathing, it's not healthy but
| nothing serious.
|
| Having a nuclear reactor in every house would be insane.
| Even if they don't leak radiation during their lifespan
| in normal operation. You can scare most people out of
| opening them. But can you scare every single person out
| of doing so? Considering some will be mentally unstable
| too, or outright psychopathic.
|
| The most dangerous thing a mad person can do right now is
| blow up their house with natural gas. Which is pretty
| bad, it can damage houses in the nearby area. It
| absolutely pales in comparison to creating a mini
| meltdown or even nuclear pollution however. One alpha-
| emitting dust particle inhaled into the lungs is enough
| to kill over time.
|
| And this is not a fantasy. It's happened in real life.
| Consider the Goiania incident for example and it's not
| the only one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
| mLuby wrote:
| > But can you scare every single person out of [tampering
| with a home atomic reactor]?
|
| I'd bet there's a reactor design that's tamper-proof
| enough to be less lethal than vending machines.
|
| That just leaves very determined, educated terrorists
| trying to harvest the fuel for radiotoxins or a dirty
| bomb. There are probably less convoluted ways to cause
| mass death and destruction than that, but "radioactive"
| and "fallout" are certainly more terrifying than "gunman"
| "bomb" or "poison" even if the actual damage is likely
| much lower.
|
| > The most dangerous thing a mad person can do right now
| is blow up their house with natural gas.
|
| Wiki says the Oklahoma City bomb cost USD5000 and was
| equivalent to 5000 lbs of TNT. I don't have a TNT figure
| for gas explosions in buildings (even the worst-case
| intentional one you describe), but it sounds like they're
| way less powerful than that. https://www.researchgate.net
| /publication/271492483_Hazard_an...
|
| Don't forget to weigh all this doom and gloom against the
| _massive_ (green) upsides of distributed power
| generation!
| kragen wrote:
| This was true 90 years ago, which is why Einstein and
| Szilard invented their refrigerator; it was relatively
| commonplace at the time for a refrigerator to rupture and
| fill the house with sulfur dioxide, killing the
| inhabitants. Ammonia absorption refrigerators were even
| worse, and the earliest refrigeration equipment from the
| 01860s used "chimogene", which we now know as propane and
| butane, which is not toxic but disastrously inflammable.
| Midgley's invention of chlorofluorocarbons turned out to
| be the key, and ever since then, fridges and air
| conditioners have been mostly built without any pretty
| nasty substances.
|
| Well, except for the ozone. That's getting better,
| though.
| tomp wrote:
| How often do you need to "take out the trash" from a
| nuclear reactor? Once every 10 years?
| vimy wrote:
| We wouldn't have a climate change problem today if the public
| wasn't tricked into fearing nuclear power.
| orwin wrote:
| Sorry, this doesn't pass the smell detector.
|
| The main reason why nuclear isn't a thing except in
| communist countries (or countries with a big centralized
| state power), is that scaled nuclear require central
| planning. You really can't expect private operators to run
| nuclear, because the cost of the fuel is actually 0.01% of
| the operating cost, and the most efficient way of running a
| nuclear reactor is full power.
| timonoko wrote:
| There was a movie about Russian arctic base, where the
| hero for some reason had to spend the night outside and
| warm himself with discarded portable nuclear plant. When
| he manages to get back inside first thing he was looking
| was iodine tablets.
|
| Looked very handy thing that nuclear hand warmer. Like
| big cabin stove, which runs for ever and needs no fuel.
| pjerem wrote:
| I think you are being downvoted because of the word <<
| communist >> which is exaggerating.
|
| But anyway there is some truth in what you say but I'll
| would rephrase << centralized power >> as << political
| will + state controlled company >>.
|
| You probably need this to be operated by a state
| controlled company because as much as I trust nuclear
| power, I'd never trust plants managed with a profit
| driven company. There must be unlimited warranties in
| case things goes wrong. But that is far from communism.
| You just can't allow scenarios such as the power plant
| going bankrupt while being operated or maintenance costs
| being reduced to pay bonuses.
|
| A lot of liberal countries have state controlled
| electricity providers. In France we even have multiple
| energy companies but just one is state controlled.
| tedsanders wrote:
| Your statement is plainly untrue and I don't know why you
| posted it. Electricity is a minority of GHG emissions
| (<25%). Even if electricity became 100% GHG-free, and even
| if you converted transportation and heating to electricity,
| you still have plenty of other GHG sources like
| agricultural, smelting, etc.
|
| Just because nuclear power has been unfairly maligned
| doesn't mean it would unilaterally solve our climate
| problems. Beware mood affiliation when posting short pithy
| comments.
|
| https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar
| 5... (see page 44)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| With EVs, nuclear could solve a lot more of our energy
| mix. Maybe EV tech would have been more developed earlier
| if we had cheaper electricity.
|
| But that still ignores the huge capital costs of building
| a nuclear power plant, not to mention the liability
| insurance that has to be provided by the government.
| HPsquared wrote:
| In a world of cheap nuclear electricity, more
| possibilities would open up in these other areas like
| smelting etc. It would be possible to have a higher
| carbon tax, use more electricity-derived heat for
| industrial processes (even just electrolyze and burn
| hydrogen if needed).
|
| Farming is a tricky one but again, with cheap electricity
| things like hydroponics become more feasible. A lot of
| things are physically possible but simply ruled out by
| the economics of energy cost.
| [deleted]
| OneTimePetes wrote:
| Nuclear is not ideal, because its civilizational brittle. Meaning
| it relies on complex society remaining stable and producing all
| those artifacts to maintain and recreate it. Add to that a
| complex supply chain and its less then ideal for a uncertain
| future.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| This 31 minute documentary detailing the Camp Century project and
| reactor is truly fascinating if you're into this kind of thing.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NYczAuXl4
|
| There are lots of others like this.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| That's a really fantastic bit of propagandistic history. I
| realised from the first that the claimed mission was B.S.,
| though in the end, science actually prevailed.
|
| A couple of earlier comments:
|
| 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854882
|
| 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12237745
|
| Oh, and TIL: "Alco Products, Inc.", who manufactured the
| nuclear reactor used at Camp Century, isn't ALCOA (as I'd
| suspected), but "American Locomotive Company". It was only in
| the nuclear power business for about 6 years, shipping its
| first reactors in 1957, and selling the operation in 1963.
|
| https://www.schenectadyhistory.org/railroads/alcocovers/
|
| I'm also pretty sure the _TIME Magazine_ cover shown at 30:13
| is is GE 's Ralph Cordiner:
|
| https://archive.org/details/1959-images/page/1/mode/1up
|
| More on Camp Century: https://www.wired.com/story/the-top-
| secret-cold-war-project-...
| credit_guy wrote:
| It looks like the Department of Defense is considering such
| reactors again [1], and the author of this article is very much
| against it. So much so that he published this exact same article
| at least 3 times before [2], [3], [4].
|
| [1] https://www.defensenews.com/smr/energy-and-
| environment/2021/...
|
| [2] https://theconversation.com/the-us-army-tried-portable-
| nucle...
|
| [3] https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/07/project-pele-the-
| military-...
|
| [4] https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-trying-to-
| bui...
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am not sure we can draw definitive conclusions from a bad
| experience in the 60s anyway, in the very early days of nuclear
| energy. Think of what aviation looked like 20 years after the
| flight of the Wright brothers. You would never board a plane
| today by that standard.
| [deleted]
| crmd wrote:
| Agree this is a persuasion piece not straight journalism, but
| in the author's defense, the article was originally published
| under a CC license, and he could have no idea it was posted on
| this website.
| uncoder0 wrote:
| There really isn't such a thing as straight journalism
| anymore. Most articles I've read are 'persuasion' pieces. It
| is rather sad.
| gnull wrote:
| Has it ever been different?
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| Hey the US Military has a great reputation safely discarding
| its waste! (talking about the burnpits)
| mjevans wrote:
| It really does read like a scare mongering fear article.
| Including mention of problems but no concrete followup with
| current details, or at the very least a mention of no
| resolution to the issue as of a specific time of fact-finding.
| graderjs wrote:
| _Anti-nuclear fear-mongering piece_ , you say? Why that has
| the mark of the oilman, has it not?
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Portable nuclear reactors sounds like a new way for
| government contractors to make a few billion. I suppose now
| that the war on terror is winding down they're all
| scrambling for new revenue.
| tiahura wrote:
| Surely the taliban could make use of a few of these.
| Retric wrote:
| It's common for identical articles to be on different websites
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_syndication Which traces it's
| roots back through TV, radio, and newspapers. Historically
| thousands of newspapers used to publish the same comics.
| kupopuffs wrote:
| dummies, should've invented the Internet and Search Engines
| andyxor wrote:
| The author is a geologist at University of Vermont with no
| apparent connection to energy space except for his
| environmental activism.
|
| on a separate note, NASA had a recent breakthrough after
| decades of "paper reactors", building and testing the safest
| and smallest reactor so far based on a new solid core design
| https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/kilopower/
| nitrogen wrote:
| _environmental activism._
|
| My physics teacher in high school was a retired naval nuclear
| engineer/tech/something. He blamed Jane Fonda (the actress)
| for a huge portion of the anti-nuclear activism that
| basically entrenched the power of oil companies and cartels.
| It's funny/sad how badly the save-the-forest and anti-nuke
| activism of the 1970s is coming back to bite us so hard now,
| with wildfires and global warming.
|
| Makes me wonder which activist movements today will turn out
| to have been net negative in another 40-50 years.
| GLGirty wrote:
| The safety concerns of the activists could have been
| quelled by developing thorium as a fuel. it appears to be
| very safe, too safe maybe to get funding. Instead, the
| technology that got developed was the one that created
| weapons grade material as a byproduct.
|
| "We'll build one near you. Oh we _could_ build a completely
| safe one, but instead we 're going to build the mostly safe
| one. We're willing to put you at risk if the commies also
| feel more at risk."
|
| I don't normally sympathize with nimbys, but I think that
| pitch deserved some pushback.
| 7952 wrote:
| Government's ignore activists all the time. Not sure why it
| was apparently so effective in the case of nuclear power.
| evgen wrote:
| The target of the activist is not the government, it is
| other citizens. The goal is to increase the disapproval
| and outrage above the activation energy of government
| agencies or legislatures. Anti-nuke activism hit as the
| first wave of the environmental movement was peaking
| (think anti-pollution efforts against some really, really
| bad industrial practices and the anti-litter movement)
| and it also pulled in a large swathe of anti-war
| activists who were looking for their next mission after
| the Vietnam war wound down. Combine these with some
| genuine hubris on the part of the nuclear energy industry
| and a public that has a hard time assessing actual risk
| and you get a perfect storm of sorts. It was easy to pass
| regulations and laws that made nuclear more difficult to
| deploy and casually ignore the consequence that this had
| on making petroleum products and coal the only viable
| alternatives.
| Retric wrote:
| It's cold hard economic issues that held back nuclear power
| rather than any environmental concerns. The US is actually
| close to the ideal nuclear mix from a cost basis.
|
| At best operating at full capacity with moderate subsides
| it's roughly competitive with coal operating 24/7, but the
| grid has wildly fluctuating demand and nuclear's price per
| kWh is roughly 3x as expensive at 30% power output as at
| 100%.
|
| France was able to export a lot of nuclear power while
| importing significant electricity to meet demand and they
| still had capacity factors fall below 70%.
|
| The most surprising issue with nuclear is actually fuel
| costs. Yes, it's cheap to mine and enrichment isn't that
| expensive, but refueling ends up being quite expensive in
| part because it's slow. 3+ weeks of downtime every 1.5-2
| years is effectively a 1.5+% fuel cost even if everything
| else was free. Dropping that to 1 week on it's own wouldn't
| really change the economics much but there are many such
| issues.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Economic issues were caused in part by political
| opposition. An extreme degree of reviews and legal
| objections can't help the economics.
|
| And research into new designs that might improve on
| economics and safety isn't going to be as profitable or
| as common if there is always going to be a virtually
| insurmountable hurdle of objections on spurious
| environmental grounds, so the economic pressure that has
| caused coal plants to become more efficient can't be
| applied.
|
| Plus, that coal vs nuclear economic calculation doesn't
| account for the costs of warming, nor for the intended
| electrification that abundant nuclear power was supposed
| to enable.
|
| It all has its roots in disproportionate opposition and
| silly old movies that portrayed nuclear plants as
| potentially exploding with ten megaton blasts.
| Retric wrote:
| > And research into new designs that might improve on
| economics and safety isn't going to be as profitable or
| as common if there is always going to be a virtually
| insurmountable hurdle of objections on spurious
| environmental grounds, so the economic pressure that has
| caused coal plants to become more efficient can't be
| applied.
|
| The core economic issues aren't based on the physical
| design of the reactors. Better designs might have dropped
| net costs by 20%, but that doesn't allow you to follow
| the demand curve. It doesn't allow you to operate without
| vast quantities of water. It doesn't reduce fuel costs,
| or allow efficient operation in extreme temperatures. Let
| alone figure out reasonable regulations in a small
| corrupt country that's just going to build one.
|
| Worse, the industry can't afford to invest it's own money
| in these kind of improvements. We aren't talking 100's of
| millions or low billions, were talking 10's of billions
| that might possibly payoff decades in the future. People
| see Nuclear already reviving billions in research funding
| and it hasn't really paid off yet. That's what makes such
| investments difficult.
| akvadrako wrote:
| It's clear these challenges don't nessesarially make
| Nuclear expensive when you look at France. They have the
| highest mix of Nuclear by some margin and the cheapest
| power in Western Europe.
| derriz wrote:
| France doesn't have the cheapest power in Europe. Even
| for non-households, they are beaten by a large margin by
| the likes of Denmark - where wind is the biggest source
| of generation. And household consumers pay pretty much
| the average European price for electricity. [1]
|
| If you want to look at France, google the most recent
| French attempt to add nuclear capacity - Flamanville 3.
| It's 15 years late and nearly 6 times over budget and
| still not operational.
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php...
| roenxi wrote:
| Curious. Denmark has either the 2nd highest or the 4th
| lowest power prices in Europe depending on whether we're
| talking about household or non-household users.
|
| There must be something strange going on there beyond
| just having wind power, that is a huge divergence. Driven
| mainly by taxes I see.
| derriz wrote:
| edit: Sorry - I missed your last sentence on first
| reading - so yes it's taxes.
|
| Danmark is a huge outlier in terms of how much it taxes
| household electricity consumption. Including VAT, nearly
| 70% of a Danish household electricity is tax. Non-
| households are taxed much more lightly. This is a policy
| decision I guess to encourage more efficient utilisation.
|
| But the actual wholesale cost of electricity in Denmark
| is very low because of their use of cheap wind power.
|
| I don't have anything more up-to-date than this[1] which
| is for 2019 but the second page shows a bar graph where
| the level of tax on household electricity is shown.
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/10826
| 603/8-0...
| Retric wrote:
| French nuclear subsides separate the cost of electricity
| from what consumers are paying.
| phicoh wrote:
| The problem seems to be that 'we' don't know how to build
| nuclear reactors anymore. France has to replace their
| aging nuclear powerplants in the next few decades. But
| building a new one proves to be very difficult.
|
| It is not clear to me what changed. There have been a few
| accidents. But Chernobyl is mostly unrelated to current
| reactors. Fukushima is of course more annoying but it
| doesn't explain why so many current projects that try
| build a nuclear powerplant are failing.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The problem is more that we can't imagine decentralised
| open power.
| google234123 wrote:
| Imagine how cheap that will seem if we continue at the
| current inflation rates in 25 years :)
| mbreese wrote:
| _> silly old movies that portrayed nuclear plants as
| potentially exploding with ten megaton blasts_
|
| Don't forget the radioactive monsters/kaiju (Godzilla, et
| al) or fish (Simpsons). Those couldn't have helped much
| either.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Simpsons showed no matter how corrupt management (Burns)
| and how incompetent staff (Homer), nuclear power was
| generally fine.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Considering the military is the worst pollution offender, I'm
| wary of how they'd handle nuclear waste.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Don't they operate some of the largest fleet of nuclear
| powered vessels currently operating? Maybe share some of the
| issues they've had with those (obviously using very old
| tech). Sub / Aircraft carriers etc. The mission endurance on
| a carrier is amazing on the power plant side.
|
| 260,000 shaft horsepower for 20 years between refueling.
|
| I'd be curious how much oil would need to be burned instead
| of this (bunker fuels tend to be HIGHLY polluting).
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| The US Nuclear Navy Force has logged over 5,400 reactor
| years of accident-free operations since 1955
| cratermoon wrote:
| How many reactor-years of accident-plagued operations
| have they had? USS Thresher and USS Scorpion both sank
| with all hands lost.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Both instances are still zero accidents from a nuclear
| perspective.
|
| Both sites have been visited every few years since they
| were located to check on the reactors. The design on both
| is working as intended, and no radioactive material has
| been detected to be leaking from either wreck. US naval
| nuclear reactors are (supposedly) designed such that they
| shouldn't lose containment if the vessel either sinks
| from an accident or is destroyed by enemy activity.
| chess_buster wrote:
| At least for the next few years...
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| Wasn't the _Thresher_ likely sunk by an electrical fault
| causing the reactor to automatically shut down, followed
| by an inability to blow the ballast tanks and rise to the
| surface?
| gpm wrote:
| I mean, you're not wrong (I assume), but you're also just
| excluding the hours which involved accidents.
|
| The USS Puffer [1], Proteus [1], Dace [1], California
| (twice) [2], Truxton [2], Gurnard (twice) [3], Hawksbill
| [3], and Abraham Lincoln [3] have all unintentionally
| leaked nuclear waste into the various bodies of water
| [1].
|
| The USS Guardfish managed to irradiate it's own crew
| enough that 4 of them were sent to the hospital, and
| later managed to contaminate the submarine again while
| dumping radioactive resin into the wind. The latter form
| of incident is described as "quite common" [2].
|
| The USS Aspro [2], Sam Houston [3], etc managed to leak
| radioactive water internally.
|
| The USS Sam Rayburn "is mildly radioactive when it
| returns from patrol in February 1984. The Navy says this
| radiation is so mild it cannot be detected by a Geiger
| counter. " [3] (whatever that means)
|
| (I make no claim that this is a complete list, or even a
| particularly reliable list since I didn't check my
| sources sources or anything like that, the point is there
| have definitely been accidents).
|
| It's true that "there have been no spectacular
| meltdowns", but you're also talking about operating in an
| extremely controlled environments of a ship that you
| control. I don't think the army is going to have as an
| easy a time at it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclea
| r_accid...
|
| [2] http://www.chris-winter.com/Digressions/Nuke-
| Goofs/Refs-70.h...
|
| [3] http://www.chris-winter.com/Digressions/Nuke-
| Goofs/Refs-80.h...
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| The US Nuclear Navy Force has logged over 5,400 reactor
| years of accident-free operations, _as far as they are
| willing to tell the public_.
|
| What would be an accident in the civilian space would be
| a state secret in the military.
| mc32 wrote:
| With all the monitoring today, if there were an accident
| resulting in unexpected radioactivity, people would find
| out.
|
| If you know of a way to hide it, Jong-un Kim would like
| to talk to you.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Look up "Hanford Site".
| smegger001 wrote:
| to be fair Hanford dates back to the Manhattan Project. wWe
| have learned allot about containment in the intervening 80
| years since ww2. Like don't mix chemical weapons waste with
| nuclear waste and throw it in a single walled container
| that is prone to corrosion.
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