
Advanced nuclear technology just got a big green light from Congress - rbanffy
https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/610452/advanced-nuclear-technology-just-got-a-big-green-light-from-congress/
======
nharada
I'm all for this. We desperately need carbon-free sources of energy, and even
though there are challenges associated with nuclear it really is a powerful
technology and I think the risks are generally worth it. Even better if the
partnerships formed here can produce reactors that remove or reduce some of
the negatives.

And before anyone even says it, I strongly support work into solar, wind, and
other non-carbon sources as well. I believe it should be all hands on deck to
solve climate change and I see no problem with supporting all of these
technologies.

------
acidburnNSA
Glad to hear it.

One issue in the advanced nuclear industry is that a lot of people (there are
~50 individual advanced nuclear efforts in the USA [1]) are competing to have
the best nuclear technology without collaborating all that much, even though
such collaboration may be necessary for the industry to overcome its
challenges (i.e. survive in an era of cheap natural gas and popular/successful
intermittent renewables). It's important for nuclear to survive because
intermittent renewables in the 50-75% of total energy range can benefit a lot
from some low-carbon baseload (or, even better, just low-carbon dispatchable
energy), and it will be much easier to decarbonize with a successful nuclear
fleet.

In advanced nuclear, you need test facilities to perform multi-year material
and fuel tests, physics modeling software to be validated against experimental
facilities that no longer exist, and a big-ticket hardware supply chain that's
ramped up to "N-stamp" quality assurance programs. All of this is hard.

Secrecy in the nuclear industry dates back to the Manhattan Project and the
naval nuclear stuff, but it's holding it back now. I've been dreaming about
much more work in open-source reactor design software, open-source reactor
hardware, and other ways to share facilities, supply chains, etc. The hard
part is finding business cases when the industry is still mostly run by old-
school engineering managers.

[1] [https://www.thirdway.org/infographic/the-advanced-nuclear-
in...](https://www.thirdway.org/infographic/the-advanced-nuclear-
industry-2016-update)

------
monochromatic
Fusion on the grid in 15 years? Excuse me if I don’t hold my breath.

~~~
melling
The article doesn’t say anything about fusion. If it’s part of the research, I
don’t think it’s the main focus.

~~~
monochromatic
Hmm, you're right. The linked article didn't mention fusion.

That website is such a mess though that I wound up on the main page
unintentionally, and there was an article: MIT researchers say nuclear fusion
will feed the grid “in 15 years”

I didn't realize they were separate.

------
OrganicMSG
Whatever your position, this reads like a barely touched industry press
release.

"Nuclear power is one of the few sources of clean energy that can reliably
provide always-on power (unlike solar or wind)"

Ignoring renewable paired with storage when comparing capability with future
reactor designs seems dishonest.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Not needing storage is a real advantage. I see nothing "dishonest" about
pointing that out.

~~~
bobthepanda
It's an advantage if you assume the current grid is a great setup and
shouldn't be changed. With the increasing frequency of severe weather events
taking down the grid in areas, the decentralized storage that a more
renewables-focused grid would probably require would probably be a good thing
to have.

~~~
Turing_Machine
No, not needing storage is an advantage under any conceivable scenario.
Storage of any kind is bulky, expensive, and dangerous.

~~~
toomuchtodo
As long as you solve the waste issue. If you can't solve nuclear waste, cheap
batteries, solar, and wind will beat you every time.

And you better be able to deliver for under 8 cents/kwh, which is where
battery backed renewables are currently at (and that will continue to fall).

~~~
paulddraper
Yes. The waste issue has already been more or less solved.

Whether the cost can be made sufficiently cheap is another question. Inflation
adjusted estimates have (somehow) been climbing since 60s when we actually
built nuclear plants.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Can you provide a citation for waste being solved? My understanding is that
there is no long term storage facility, all waste is being stored in
"temporary" facilities on site, and that any reactor capable of reprocessing
nuclear waste ("burning it up") has never been operated at commercial scale.

[https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear...](https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear_waste/issue_summary)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/nucle...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/nuclear-
waste-wipp-new-mexico/506117/)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-
environment-i...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-
idUSKBN18M2OP)

~~~
paulddraper
France had been recycling waste for decades.

The US is building the Yucca facility, but politics have held it up.
Generally, the nuclear waste problem is political not technical.

And once nuclear waste becomes more than an academic question, the solution
will magically appear.

[http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-
fue...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-
cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Unfortunately, without a legitimate method of disposing of nuclear waste today
(despite France reprocessing some nuclear waste, they still bury large amounts
underground) at the scale we've generated it, I'll continue to oppose nuclear
power and advocate for renewables and battery storage.

Nuclear advocates hand wave away the waste concerns as "solvable", yet they're
never solved. You can't craft policy in such a way, as it's just yet another
example of kicking the can to future generations. If you can prove that
recycling facilities are in place and ready to accept waste on day 1 of a new
facility coming online, that would be cause to advocate for nuclear.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Your point is reasonable as stated for sure. I'd like to add to the
conversation that there's a used fuel repository facility in Finland that's
under construction now and is very likely to be the first permanent solution
for nuclear waste [1]. The geologists I've talked to are very confident that
deep geologic storage is a solid technical solution.

I'd also like to point out that the magnitude of nuclear waste is extremely
small, due to the unbelievably energy density of nuclear fuel (2 million times
more energy per mass than chemical energy). All the waste ever generated in
the US fits in a football field a few stories high. It's incredibly small,
albeit dangerous stuff. But that means it's even more reasonable to think we
can bury it responsibly, without kicking the can.

There's also been good storage of waste in salt deposits down at WIPP [2]. We
know that water moves centimeters in there in hundreds of thousands of years,
so the radioisotopes will be well contained outside the biosphere until well
after they've decayed to harmlessness.

I'd also plead with you to advocate nuclear energy in addition to renewables
and battery storage. We need them all. You obviously are aware that batteries
and vast fields of solar and wind and hydro have land/waste/cost/and carbon
footprints of their own. I beg you to fairly compare those footprints with the
footprints of nuclear energy. Nukes and the intermittent renewables must be
partners in our major quest to decarbonize.

Future generations will be much happier with us if we stop emitting carbon
than if we safely bury tiny amounts of radioactive waste.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Agree with all of your points, and spoke with my Illinois legislators when
they were considering subsidies to keep at-risk existing commercial nuclear
generators operating.

My concern with new generators is that it takes at least a decade to construct
one. Can someone build one faster, cheaper, and manage the waste stream? I'm
all for it.

------
oh-kumudo
This is very good news. Nuclear is the energy to go.

------
chiefalchemist
My understanding is - via a very respected nuclear R&D person - the only thing
holding fusion back is money. Any investment in fission seems misguided and
wasteful.

~~~
doggydogs94
For the last 40 years, fusion has always been one small technical problem away
from being solved. Well, 40 years and millions and maybe billions of dollars
later, we really are no closer to having solved the fusion puzzle (i.e.
containing and sustaining a fusion reaction as to be useful). I personally do
not see this being solved before 2100.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Fwiw a couple days after a renown expert said to me (in so many words)
"soon...we can so this..." this happened:

[https://gizmodo.com/chinese-fusion-test-
creates-90-million-f...](https://gizmodo.com/chinese-fusion-test-
creates-90-million-f-for-102-secon-1757993374)

We built the bomb.

We put human on the moon.

But we can't do fusion? And it's the one we need most?

To play on Thiel's quote, thank god Twitter doubled their character count. Now
that's an amazing advance!!!

------
merb
> Nuclear power is one of the few sources of clean energy

well clean if you forget about the waste in the aftermath..

~~~
mikeash
Solar is only clean if you forget about the waste from manufacturing and end-
of-life panels. Nothing is perfect. Nuclear is pretty good.

~~~
bayesian_horse
To compare the waste of solar panel production with the highly radio active,
highly toxic waste a nuclear reactor leaves behind, is like saying an
Elefant's poop doesn't matter because a mouse poops too.

~~~
mikeash
Nuclear produces far less waste, so I think your analogy is backwards.

That waste is nasty, but the quantity is really small.

------
bayesian_horse
I don't trust the current administration to not screw up regulation and
oversight over such "advanced nuclear technology". Come to think of it, I
don't even trust them to not screw up an NDA to a porn star...

~~~
mozumder
The current administration will be gone in a few years, and will be a lame-
duck administration by November, so it's they're not really going to have a
long-term impact on it.

America needs to replace all it's coal and gas plants immediately with non-
carbon energy, as well as replacing all gasoline/diesel vehicles with electric
ones. This should happen sooner rather than later. Electric car tech is
completely ready to go, and all cars can be electric by the next model cycle,
which normally takes about 6-8 years of development time.

And then we have to be able to remove the released carbon from the atmosphere
once we convert to non-carbon energy, which is another project...

~~~
kerkeslager
> The current administration will be gone in a few years, and will be a lame-
> duck administration by November, so it's they're not really going to have a
> long-term impact on it.

What do you think has changed since November 2016 that would cause this to be
the case?

~~~
MertsA
Not totally sure what they meant by that but in fairness the Trump
administration has had a tremendously high turnover and there's a great deal
of important positions left open in the government because the Trump
administration either hasn't appointed anyone for the job or Congress didn't
confirm that appointment.

They might also be implying that we'll be saluting president Pence after the
Mueller investigation is over.

