The most common argument is that wind and solar power are the cheapest clean energy sources and that nuclear power plants are the most expensive. Taken at face value, it is true that a single solar photovoltaic (PV) panel is cheap, and that a single wind turbine is cheap, while on the other hand, a single nuclear power plant costs billions of pounds. Technically, measured one-on-one, it is correct that wind and solar are cheaper. But is it useful to compare them in this way? //

To understand why people argue that wind and solar power are cheaper, we need to examine the basic economic metric for assessing a generating power plant: the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE). This metric provides what is essentially a banker’s number that covers the total amount of power over the lifetime of an energy source, divided by the lifecycle costs over the lifetime of the same energy source.

But there’s a problem: LCOE is a terrible metric for assessing cost-effectiveness because it doesn’t include several crucial factors. For example, it ignores costs and benefits at an energy system level, such as price reductions due to low-carbon generation and higher system costs when extra interconnection, storage, or backup power is needed due to the variable output of wind and solar power.

Crucially, LCOE ignores the value of the plant’s output to the grid. For example, solar plants have a much more attractive production profile relative to wind farms because society needs most of the energy during the day when the sun is shining. So, even though the LCOE of solar power is higher than wind energy, it provides electricity that is more economically valuable. A paper found that ‘An LCOE comparison ignores the temporal heterogeneity of electricity and in particular the variability of VRE [Variable Renewable Energy]’. Therefore, the true economics of power generation can be very different to the ones predicted by the LCOE numbers.

Another issue LCOE ignores relates to different lifespans of technologies. Typically, a 20- or 30-year recovery period is accounted for, but what about when competing technologies last half a century or more? Then the comparison is faulty, as nuclear power plants can generate power for 60 to 80 years, sometimes longer.

Other factors that aren’t considered by the LCOE include:

• Cost of the land required
• Cost to the consumer
• Dispatchability, i.e. the ability of a generating system to come online, go offline, or ramp up or down, quickly as demand swings
• Indirect costs of generation, which can include environmental externalities or grid upgrade requirements
• Additional cost of integrating non-dispatchable energy sources into the grid
• Cost of disposal, which is usually built into the price of nuclear energy but excluded from the price of solar and wind power
• Subsidies and externality costs, such as the costs of carbon emissions
• The cost of backup or baseload power

Intermittent power sources like wind and solar usually incur extra costs associated with needing to have storage or backup generation available. LCOE ignores the cost of this unreliability, which can be as simple as keeping coal-fired power stations running in case they are needed to fire up and meet electricity demand when it becomes less windy or sunny. //

South Korea is our second example. In the mid-1980s the Korean nuclear industry decided to standardise the design of nuclear plants and to gain independence in building them. The country imported proven US, French, and Canadian reactor designs in the 1970s and learned from other countries' experiences before developing its own domestic reactors in 1989. It developed stable regulations, had a single utility overseeing construction, and built reactors in pairs at single sites.

The results were remarkable: between 1971 and 2008, South Korea built a total of 28 reactors. Due to the developments they made in 1989, their overnight construction cost fell by 50%. //

With nuclear energy, waste disposal and decommissioning costs are usually fully included in the operating costs, but they are not accounted for in wind and solar costs. Yes, a single solar panel is cheap. But what about disposing of it? Sadly, they often end up in landfill sites in poor countries abroad, where they leach toxic chemicals. Batteries are currently not recycled, and therefore this is another missing cost. Wind turbine blades face similar issues. And none of these elements will last more than thirty years before they need replacing. What will that cost? //

Oil and gas companies celebrate wind and solar power because they keep fossil fuels in business. Today, wind and solar are backed 1:1 by oil-and-gas-based generators, to fill the gaps when it isn’t windy or sunny, thus keeping the oil and gas industries in demand. In the future, solar purists propose mega storage, which means more batteries, and overbuilding (extra panels) as the solution. These extra costs aren't factored into LCOE. //

What I have tried to do here is trigger a thought experiment by illustrating how complicated these assessments are, that it is not a case of comparing one panel to one plant, and that the LCOE fails on all counts. Ultimately, the full cost of nuclear energy is an upfront investment for a long-lasting, reliable form of energy, which is not the cost people consider when arguing that solar panels and wind turbines are cheaper. Nuclear energy can get cheaper, or it can get more expensive, depending on how it is approached. //

I am of the opinion that we should build everything we need to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and reduce deaths from air pollution. Yet it is clean energy advocates who only like wind and solar power who argue against nuclear energy based on the myth that the latter is too expensive. //

Every time a nuclear power plant is replaced with fossil fuel generation, people die from the resulting air pollution, and more fossil fuel waste is stored in the Earth’s atmosphere. Every time a grid is made to support more wind and solar power without the baseload power to support them, fossil fuels win as they have to fill the gap. Every time a nuclear power plant isn’t built on the supposed basis of cost, the environment is further harmed and human progress takes a step backwards. Every time someone quotes the LCOE, they are either being misled, misleading others, or both.

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be… This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.” – Isaac Asimov //

There is no argument for our complacency that is better represented than the current social movement against producing energy, which perhaps began with Boomers, but is now being led mostly by Gen Z, also known as ‘the sustainability generation’, and also to some degree by Millennials. The irony is that these generations have been the most comfortable of all (and –full disclosure – I am a Millennial); unlike my parents who grew up in poverty in India, and were then manual labourers in Britain, we have had it easy. We haven’t suffered through truly gruelling labour, we don’t need to know how electricity grids work, and most of us have never stepped foot in a mine or experienced electricity blackouts. The divide between what it takes to maintain a high quality of life and the understanding of this has also widened over generations; //

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Thanks to years of development and growth, we live in a time of prosperity, facing fewer core challenges than past generations. //

The problem is that thanks to all of this, a disconnection has occurred between our lifestyles and what it has taken to get us here. The lack of understanding of the skilled labour, need for industries, and mining for raw materials that enabled these lifestyles, and the fact that the toll those things took on the environment was inevitable, but not permanent, has repercussions for society. I was once part of the problem, fighting to forge a society that would be independent of fossil fuels, without thinking about our continued and growing need for reliable electricity and fighting for the alternatives. My argument was the standard traditional environmentalist argument: that we need to live with less. I was wrong.

Now, the argument has gone so far that activists argue that we should just stop oil overnight. But can it be done without causing immense harm to people? //

About 45% of a typical barrel of crude oil is refined into gasoline, and an additional 29% is refined into diesel fuel. The remaining 26% is used to make plastics and other products. There is good news in these figures, as it means that we can reduce a lot of our dependence on oil by making the switch from petrol and diesel cars to electric vehicles, which is a trend that is taking place in many countries already. //

Instead of going ahead anyway and virtue signalling that they are now plastic-free, Lego has ditched plans to switch to PET, since doing so would have had a greater impact on the environment.

Of course, many anti-oil activists would argue that Lego should stop making the bricks altogether. They would argue that they are unnecessary and wasteful. But I disagree. I recall many years of constructing large and complicated architectural designs with my brother when we were children; he was fascinated by the way things work and are put together, and he later trained to become an engineer (a field he now holds a senior position in). This link between playing with Lego and developing engineering skills has been well-documented elsewhere. The irony of wanting to just stop oil is well represented in the idea that we don’t ‘need’ Lego. We don’t ‘need’ to build housing, railways, or power plants either – if we are happy for society to stagnate and for future generations to suffer.

Let’s ignore the idea of an immediate transition, then, and consider what can be done to stop oil eventually. //

This brings me back to a point I’ve been making for years: we should be aiming for energy abundance.

As we shift towards electrifying everything, switching from gas boilers to heat pumps, and diesel cars to electric vehicles, much of our demand for oil will be replaced naturally. But the alternatives will require more electricity, and unless the electricity grid is supplying us with clean power, we have a problem. //

As I’ve explained before, we can build all the wind and solar power people want, but we will still need baseload power to back them up, and historically this has always either come from fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Although the upfront costs for the alternatives appear to be cheaper than for nuclear, this is incorrect when the figures are viewed in context. As well, we need to be aware of shift-loading the costs of wind and solar power onto ordinary working people. I’ve also seen NGOs arguing for building wind and solar in less wealthy countries, and I find this tactic appalling. Intermittent energy is not what we in the wealthy West used to escape poverty. We burned a lot of fossil fuels to develop. We don’t get to deny other countries of that now. //

The truth is that I am a shill. I am a shill for the human race. I want to see the end of needless suffering and death from preventable diseases. I want to see all poverty eradicated. Apart from a few specific war-mongers, who doesn’t want to see the end of all war? I want all life on this planet to thrive. I want to see the best of humankind during my brief presence on this pale blue dot that we are so fortunate enough to inhabit. I want us to live long and prosper.

Humans are capable of solving immense problems and achieving great things, through forging strong values and working together. I am a shill for progress because I want to see what we do next, once the immediate – and entirely solvable – problems like air pollution, poverty, and climate change have been solved.

JUST STOP OIL

JUST START NUCLEAR

Last February, the independent Public Advocates Office of the state Public Utilities Commission reported that residential electricity rates in California had risen between 77% and 105% since 2014 and are far above the national average. “The majority of bill increases are associated with long-standing state priorities,” the report explained.

Yet for all the money Californians pay for those “priorities,” the state doesn’t really run on solar and wind energy.

It’s powered mostly by natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear energy and, when all else fails, electricity generated in other states and imported on transmission lines. //

While California’s need for electricity can rise as high as 50,000 megawatts in the summer with air conditioning, solar energy produces about 15,000 megawatts at its peak, declining to zero after sunset.

The gap is filled by – you guessed it – natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric and imports.

In pursuit of “100% clean electricity,” the state’s gas-fired plants were scheduled to be closed this week and its one nuclear plant to be shuttered in 2025.

LeedCo points to the long delays and legal challenges it faced while specifically calling out “a project killing condition by the Ohio Power Siting Board which significantly impeded the project.” The company was involved in an extended battle with regulators and legal appeals after the Ohio Power Sitting Board initially ruled that the wind farm would have to cease operations in the evening to protect birds. //

But the stake driven into the heart of this project came from genuine environmental concerns about the bird life in the region.

They got their thumbs up, but it came in a mitten. Sure they could put their turbines out in the lake, the new chair of the OPSB [Ohio Power Siting Board], Sam Randazzo said, but the blades had to be “feathered” – or stopped – at night for nine months out of the year to protect waterfowl, raptors, and bats. LEEDCO went ballistic, calling it a “poison pill.” //

But, as this is the Christmas season, I would like to end on a positive note for our friends in Ohio. A more reliable and efficient energy project is being planned for the state.

A California company has signed an agreement to open two new cutting-edge nuclear power plants by the end of the decade on the site of a long-shuttered Southern Ohio facility built to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Oklo Inc., announced this week it intends to build two small, advanced nuclear power plants on part of a 3,700-acre site south of Piketon that once was home to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. They would be the first nuclear power plants built in Ohio in decades. //

MattMusson in reply to gonzotx. | December 24, 2023 at 9:48 pm
The three largest wind turbine manufacturers have admitted that their products won’t actually last the 20 year lifespan they were sold as having. At 20 years, only subsidies and low interest rates made them possible. With a 12 year life, high interest rates and falling subsidies they are not close to practical.

According to IAEA calculations, it is necessary to double the number of nuclear reactors in the world - currently at about 400 units - to achieve the objectives of the Paris climate agreement, Grossi said at the World Nuclear Exhibition in Paris. //

"We already have 10 countries which have entered the decision phase (to build nuclear power plants) and 17 others which are in the evaluation process," he said.

"There will be a dozen or 13 (new) nuclear countries within a few years," he added.

Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Namibia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were cited by Grossi as potential new nuclear countries.

The purpose of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity is to chronicle the scientific and commercial history of radioactivity and radiation. It has been deemed the official repository for historical radiological instruments by the Health Physics Society, and the Society has been generous in its financial support for the purchase of items.

The collection is the property of the not-for-profit ORAU Foundation, and it is located at the Professional Training Programs (PTP) training facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Unless noted otherwise, this website only features items actually in the collection.

As the green energy dominoes continue to fall, one of the major climate cult propaganda machines falls with them. //

As we enter the year’s final phase, I am becoming more hopeful that 2023 may be remembered as an essential point in human civilization as the threat to critical and efficient energy supplies begins to recede.

Sweden’s government has ditched plans to go all-in on “green energy,” green-lighting the construction of new nuclear power plants. Fossil fuel giant Shell announced it was scaling back its energy transition plans to focus on . . . gas and oil! Specific wind farm projects began to topple due to strong economic headwinds because the cost of generating electricity was deemed too high.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his decision to open the North Sea to more oil and gas drilling. French President Emmanuel Macron is surrendering to reality and asked for a “regulatory pause.”. More recently, the US and the United Kingdom have committed to expanding nuclear energy, and offshore windfarm projects are going kaput.

Now comes intriguing confirmation that there may be an end to the mindless and unscientific promotion of green energy sooner rather than later. One of the climate crisis propaganda machines is closing its climate desk. //

Neo | November 24, 2023 at 7:57 pm
The dam on Climate Change hysteria seem to break after ExxonMobil broke ranks saying that to reach NetZero 2050 would require sacrifices that society would not accept. //

broomhandle | November 24, 2023 at 8:14 pm
How much advanced nuclear technology could have been developed with all the resources wasted on green energy follies? Maybe that was the point all along.

Gordian Knot News just turned two. The number of posts is over 100. Way too many. Our new subscribers need to understand that most of these posts are redundant detail. If they are truly interested in solving the Gordian Knot, they should focus on the A List.

The core argument is simple. Humanity needs cheap nuclear power. Cheap nuclear power is the only way the species can prosper. If and only if we have cheap nuclear power, can we lift billions of humans out of poverty. If and only if we have cheap nuclear power, can we stop polluting out planet's atmosphere and conserve its land.

It is a simple argument based on dispatchability, energy density, natural resources required, and the amount of CO2 and other pollutants generated. The numbers are so overwhelmingly obvious, they beg the question: why is nuclear not our totally dominant source of electricity? Why has nuclear power been such a tragic flop?

You do not need 100 posts to answer this question. I need twelve. Everything else is redundant detail.

Mostly because they don't know

When I give talks I am frequently asked a variation of the following question: how do we stop consumption and development to protect the planet?

My answer always draws blank faces. Stopping growth is not the solution to addressing climate change, I tell concerned environmentalists and anxious climate activists. We do need to decarbonise and move to cleaner technologies, but fighting development won’t save the planet, and nor has it been shown to reduce emissions. //

We have also repeatedly been told that we are the problem, and therefore the solution is for there to be fewer of us. But all of this is wrong.

It may seem unbelievable that continuing on our current trajectory will solve anything, but the evidence shows that environmental progress is being made in many areas and that growth is the only thing that is working in terms of lowering emissions and improving air quality.

If we want to save the planet, we need to understand what works.

We know how to reduce resource consumption without reducing growth

It’s true that for the past 200 years, economic activity has led to an increase in carbon emissions. More recently, however, since the 1980s and largely thanks to the use of nuclear energy, many countries have been able to reduce emissions while continuing to increase GDP. Investment in renewables has also driven this growth further. In 2016, 70 countries experienced a growth in GDP while also experiencing a run of at least five years in which emissions decreased.

Using historical data, researchers have calculated that nuclear energy has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. They find that:

“On the basis of global projection data that take into account the effects of the Fukushima accident, we find that nuclear power could additionally prevent an average of 420,000–7.04 million deaths and 80–240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels by midcentury, depending on which fuel it replaces. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of unconstrained natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem and would cause far more deaths than expansion of nuclear power.” //

As countries become richer, they become more environmentally friendly. Air quality improves, water use becomes more efficient, and fewer natural resources are required. This is true across developed countries, where the population has increased but resource consumption has fallen, including timber, water, metal, minerals, and energy. //

Although cars still carry an environmental cost, not having them would also have had a significant impact on the planet. The Horse Association of America calculated that 54 million acres of US farmland was spared by the automobile in the 1930s, as the land was not needed for meadows for grazing horses. The US population has nearly tripled since then, yet hundreds of millions of acres of forests were saved from being cut down to make room to feed horses and to store waste horse manure.

Cars are not an isolated example – consider your Smartphone. Again, the innovation of phone designs has significantly reduced material use. In the recent past, a single person would have owned a GPS device, a calculator, a camera, a landline telephone, an alarm clock, and so on. Now, you only need one device instead of all of these items. Yes, phones still require resources, but the amount required is significantly less than when multiple items are no longer needed to do the same job. Resource use often becomes significantly reduced as the technology becomes more efficient. //

Building more clean energy is also key to cleaner air, tackling emissions, and reducing resource consumption. When it is built in Britain, the nuclear power plant Sizewell C will produce 3.2 GWh of electricity. Compare this with the 2.6 GWh produced by the Drax power station by burning 27 million trees every year. The alternative to building Sizewell C would be burning 33 million trees a year. That’s more than one tree per second.

Drax, which is classed as ‘renewable’ but shouldn’t be, is the UK’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. Burning wood creates 18% more CO2 than burning coal. Instead of relying on polluting fuels that may be classified as green, we need to build nuclear power plants, which allow us all to breathe a little easier.

As a result of Germany’s nuclear power phase-out, they are now burning coal again, and a study found that the air pollution resulting from the nuclear phase-out is now killing an extra 1,100 people a year. ​Japan also shut down their nuclear power plants (although they recently reversed this decision), and a study found that if both countries had reduced fossil fuel power output instead of nuclear energy, they could have prevented 28,000 air pollution-induced deaths and 2400 MtCO2 emissions between 2011 and 2017. //

Traditional environmentalism was founded based on the myth of overpopulation. In 1798, the English economist Thomas Malthus predicted that (so-called) ‘overpopulation’ would lead to famine as there would be too many mouths to feed.

He was wrong. There was no population ‘bomb’, no famine due to increased numbers of people. Instead, life improved for many millions of people, thanks to the innovation and development that they initiated. This largely relates to agriculture and the productivity of land, where labour and capital have increased more than proportionately to the increased number of humans. Thanks to agricultural improvements and technological advances, which required the input of many people and the use of many hands, we have experienced an outcome of more food rather than less. Thanks to the mechanisation of The Green Revolution, we have seen greatly increased crop yields and agricultural production, improved food supplies, and increased economic development in underdeveloped nations. Sadly, many environmentalists are still in denial about this and see such food security as a bad thing. //

There is an argument to be made that increased population has led to more environmental progress, through greater human capital. In November 2022, the world’s population hit 8 billion. Across history, exceptional people have led us to technological and cultural masterpieces. The past 200 years have shown exponential growth in technical development and innovation. In 1823 there were just over 1 billion people in the world. We now have 8 billion people from whom pioneering new science, art, medicine, and other technologies are emerging daily. A bigger pool of human capital is therefore not inherently a bad thing, but may yield immense benefits – so long as many of these people are also freed from the chains of poverty so that they can live fulfilling lives and contribute to global progress.

I cannot make this argument more clearly than the late statistician Hans Rosling, who gave a talk on the reduction of extreme poverty, where he also goes into the difference that owning a washing machine made for his (financially poor) family:

“My mother explained the magic with this machine the very very first day. She said, ‘now Hans, we have loaded the laundry, the machine will make the work. And now we can go to the library. Because this is the magic. You load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine? You get books out of the machines. Children’s books.’ And mother got time to read for me. She loved this. I got the ABCs, this is why I started my career as Professor, when mother had time to read for me. And she also got books for herself, she managed to study English and learn that as a foreign language… We really loved this machine. And what we said, my mother and me, ‘thank you industrialisation. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station, and thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books’!”

Imagine a world with fewer people like Hans Rosling in it. It would be a much poorer world without such invaluable contributions to human knowledge and progress. We would all be impacted by this loss. //

Let’s give people a break. For too long we have been sold the myth that we should be concerned about so-called ‘overpopulation’, but this has been proven to be nonsensical fearmongering. Instead, population decline is occurring in almost every country in the world, and it is already having negative impacts on ageing populations and the future generations who have to support them. Not only do ageing populations impose costs on society as we struggle to pay for healthcare and pensions, but in some countries like Japan there simply aren’t enough younger people to physically support older generations, which poses serious problems for the country. //

But it’s telling that underpopulation has not led to a moral panic the way that false ideas of population growth have done so for many years. Arguably, underpopulation will have a far greater and more negative impact than the old worry of having more mouths to feed. For example, China, whose economy has long benefited from the sheer number of people in its workforce, is forecast to lose almost half of this population by 2100, plunging from more than 1.4 billion to 771 million inhabitants. Many of our goods come from China – including solar panels. The Chinese One Child Policy, which was so concerned with ‘overpopulation’, has proven to be short-sighted and damaging in ways that Chinese leaders did not foresee. Unfortunately, Germany, South Korea and Russia are not far behind on the underpopulation trajectory, and Europe's population as a whole will begin to decline as early as this decade.

Population growth was never really the problem. Lack of foresight, and forming policy based on myths over data, have been the real problems for the planet. //

Evidence shows that we are capable of solving the world’s problems. The fool’s trick is to make out that predicting an apocalyptic future is somehow smarter than pointing out optimistic scenarios; when in reality, being pessimistic is simply the easier and lazier option thanks to human negativity bias. Yet many factors, some of which I have covered here, show that in many areas we are on a positive trajectory.

We are capable of decoupling growth from emissions. We are capable of improving air quality, which makes us healthier and makes our children taller, less violent, and smarter. We are capable of tackling climate change as well as eradicating poverty. We are capable of hitting net zero targets – as I wrote in a recent article, we may even be on track to keep under 1.5°C of warming. No one is going to shout any of this from the rooftops; it is not headline-grabbing news. But humans are capable of solving immense problems, including problems we have created, and we have been doing so for many years now. To place all our bets on failure does humankind a disservice; but also, no one has ever fixed a problem by fixating only on the problem. Let’s fight to implement evidence-based solutions instead so that we can build the cleaner, healthier world that we are all so keen to live in.

Both wind and solar power are voracious land hogs. Wind or solar can need 90 to 100 times more acreage than a natural gas plant to generate the same amount of electricity. And let’s not forget the large swaths of land that will have to be appropriated, and in heavily forested areas clear cut, to build transmission lines that connect solar and wind farms to distribution lines. //

You can't get around the energy density problem; you just can't. Physics is a harsh mistress. And the amount of land - habitat, if you want to put a point on it - required is considerable. //

Eco-activists fuss and scold over the cutting of trees to clear land for housing, commercial development, and raw materials, but apparently it’s just fine to remove trees if they’re replaced by solar panels. //

What we need more of isn't windmills, solar panels, or batteries. We need more nuclear power plants. We need more small modular reactors. We need a decentralized grid powered by splitting atoms. Do you want clean energy? This is clean energy. //

Throughout our history, every major technological advance in power – from animal to machine, from wood to coal to oil to gas – has had one key characteristic in common, and that is increased energy density. Nuclear power represents just such an increase over generating electricity with coal or gas. Solar and wind power run in just the opposite direction, which is why they don’t scale up, and were we to try, as we see here, the cost in land would be massive.

Wednesday 19th June 2013 08:28 GMT
John Smith 19Gold badge
Coat
PDP 11 odds and ends.
The PDP 11 (like the PARC Alto) had a main processor built from standard 4 bit TTL "ALU" parts and their companion "register file." So 2nd, 3rd,4th sourced. I'm not sure how many mfg still list them on their available list in the old standard 0.1" pin spacing.

El Reg ran a story that Chorus (formerly British Steel) ran them for controlling all sorts of bits of their rolling mills but I can't recall if they are

I think the core role for this task is the refueling robots for the CANDU reactors. CANDU allows "on load" refuelling. The robots work in pairs locked onto each end of the pressurized pipes that carry the fuel and heavy water coolant/moderator. They then pressurize their internal storage areas, open the ends and one pushes new fuel bundles in while the other stores the old ones, before sealing the ends. However CANDU have been working on new designs with different fuel mixes (CANDU's special sauce (C Lewis Page) is that it's run with unenriched Uranium, which is much cheaper and does not need a bomb making enrichment facility) and new fuel bundle geometries, so time for a software upgrade.

And 128 users on a PDP 11/70. Certain customers ran bespoke OSes in the early 90s that could get 300+ when VMS could only support about less than 20 on the same spec.

Note for embedded use this is likely to be RSX rather than VMS, which also hosted the ICI developed RTL/2, which was partly what hosted the BBC CEEFAX service for decades.

Yes, it's an anorak.. //

Wednesday 19th June 2013 18:20 GMT
Jamie JonesSilver badge
Thumb Up
Who's laughing?
I feel much better knowing this.

What is the alternative? Buggy software written by the "'Have you tried switching it off and on again" generation?

STATUS OF U.S. NUCLEAR OUTAGES

Every morning, each nuclear electricity generator in the United States reports its operating status to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC compiles this information in its Power Reactor Status Report, and we present that information in interactive visualizations on our Status of Nuclear Outages page. Our analysis tool combines the NRC daily status with data gathered from our Annual Electric Generator Report and Monthly Update to the Annual Electric Generator Report. The page includes two maps showing the capacity and outage status of U.S. nuclear plants.

STATUS OF U.S. NUCLEAR OUTAGES

To some observers, the plan’s collapse also raises questions about the feasibility of other planned advanced reactors, meant to provide clean energy with fewer drawbacks than existing reactors. NuScale’s was the most conventional of the designs, and the closest to construction. “There’s plenty of reasons to think [the other projects] are going to be even more difficult and expensive,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. //

Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the NuScale design has an Achilles’ heel. Each reactor’s core resides within a double-walled steel cylinder, with a vacuum between the walls to keep heat from leaking out. The reactor modules sit in a big pool of water, which in an emergency can flood into the vacuum space around a reactor to prevent it overheating. Compared with a conventional reactor’s building, the pool requires more reinforced concrete, the price of which has soared, Buongiorno says. “In terms of tons of reinforced concrete per megawatt of power, NuScale’s design is off the chart.” //

Buongiorno says he wouldn’t read NuScale’s failure as a verdict on all advanced reactor designs. “I would steer clear of broad-stroke comments in terms of cost,” he says. Baker says he has no doubt that the country needs new nuclear plants to supplement the fluctuating supply of power from wind and solar. “To achieve the nation’s decarbonization goals, it’s got to happen.”

Uranium mining in the United States hasn’t been profitable since the Russians flooded the global market with predatorily priced ore and processed fuel a decade ago.

Long before, the nation’s uranium enrichment industry, episodically idled by market paralyses and perpetually frozen in costly regulatory entanglements, had fallen into obsolescence.

In 1980, the United States produced and processed 90 percent of the uranium used by 251 nuclear power plants that generated 11 percent of the country’s electricity.

In 2021, only 5 percent of the uranium used by the 55 nuclear power plants operating in the United States—which now generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity—was produced domestically.

After years of Russian market manipulation stymied profitable domestic production, Congress has responded since 2020 with a series of bills that could, if approved, collectively spend up to $5 billion by 2035 in an attempt to bring a domestic commercial uranium market back to life. //

But unfortunately, there’s nowhere in the United States for Wyoming mines to send ore for enrichment. Nationwide, only one plant in New Mexico has the capacity to enrich uranium for use in commercial nuclear reactors.

“Even if we were mining it now, we’re shipping it somewhere else [overseas] to get it enriched and refined,” Deti said. “When it comes to conversion and enrichment, we have no capacity to do that [in the United States]."

An exciting advancement over prior AR Summits was the major role that customers played in presentations and hallway conversations. Though nuclear utility operating companies like Duke Energy, TVA, Southern Company and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) made important and encouraging presentations, the strong demand signals provided by Nucor – the largest steelmaker in the US, Dow – one of the largest chemical companies in the world, and Microsoft – one of the world’s largest data center operators – made an even bigger impact on most attendees.

Presentations from Nucore, Microsoft and Dow validated many of the concepts that have long motivated advanced nuclear developers. They showed that credible customers were willing to pay for process heat, always-on carbon free power, and behind the meter installations.

Each of the three said they were willing to assist entities that would own and operate the facilities in obtaining affordable financing by inking long-term, economically viable power purchase agreements (PPAs). Projects with PPAs from established, well-capitalized companies are almost as bankable as a captive base of ratepayers. None of them want to own or operate nuclear power plants.

This post is a sampling of information gleaned during the event. There may be additional posts based on presentations and conversations at the Summit. Several important players in the advanced nuclear community did not attend the conference. //

NuScale has attracted several strategic investors/partners that will help build its plants and/or buy power from those facilities. A notable recent addition to the NuScale team is Nucor, the largest steel maker in the United States.

Nucor is so excited about the capabilities that SMRs offer to meet some of its most challenging requirement that it sent Leon Topalian, its Chairman, President and CEO, to the summit to meet members of NIC and to provide a keynote address. (Attendees also appreciated Nucor’s hospitality as the sponsor of a rooftop welcoming reception.)

Aside: Topalian proudly reminded the audience that Nucor’s initial name was Nuclear Corporation of America. It long ago pivoted to focus on steel making but is now returning to its roots. End Aside.

Nucor operates 50 electric arc furnaces in the US. Its total electricity demand is about 50 GWe that has little variation during the 8760 hours of each per. Assuming Nucor facilities have capacity factors that are close to 90%, its electricity demand is almost 50% of the power produced by the current US nuclear fleet.

Prescription for the Planet

by Tom Blees

"This is the most important book that has ever been written on sustainable development... You MUST read it! It is not A revolution, it is THE revolution, THE way to go."

• Bruno Comby Ph.D, Founder and President of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy

Click here to download the entire book as a PDF courtesy of the author and SCGI.

Pandora's Promise

Pandora's Promise is a 2013 documentary film about the nuclear power debate, directed by Robert Stone. Its central argument is that nuclear power, which still faces historical opposition from environmentalists, is a relatively safe and clean energy source which can help mitigate the serious problem of anthropogenic global warming.

View Pandoras's Promise on Youtube. https://youtu.be/KMutoR8YTlQ

View Pandora's Promise at Netflix. https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Pandora-s-Promise/70267585

Plentiful Energy
The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor: The complex history of a simple reactor technology, with emphasis on its scientific basis for non-specialists

Authored by Charles E. Till, Yoon Il Chang

A people's guide to our nuclear planet

An introduction to nuclear radiation and its impacts on human health and Earth’s environment.

By Ron Gester, retired geologist & physician, 2023.

Earth is a nuclear planet … and nuclear energy is essential for our existence on Earth.

Without Earth's molten core, life as we know it would not exist. Earth is protected from extreme levels of cosmic and solar radiation by a geomagnetic field generated by the rotation of Earth’s molten core. It rotates because of a combination of convection, due to heat, and Earth's rotation. The heat is generated in part from the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium isotopes. [Johnston, 2011] This heat also contributes to convection in the mantle which drives plate tectonics and continental drift. Nuclear energy is a natural and essential force on Earth. Nuclear fission reactors have occurred naturally in Earth’s geologic past. Rock formations in Oklo, Gabon, W. Africa reveal that self-sustaining nuclear reactions ran in these formations for hundreds of thousands of years starting about 1.7 billion years ago.

Nuclear radiation is everywhere. What is it?

Nuclear radiation is a form of energy released from the decay of the nuclei of certain kinds of atoms. It is the same whether it is naturally occurring or man-made. It can be described as waves or particles and is part of the electromagnetic spectrum that includes light and radio waves. Ionizing radiation is radiation that has enough energy to remove electrons from their orbits, creating ions. Examples of ionizing radiation are high-level ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Natural uranium emits gamma rays. Uranium is not a scarce resource. As a result of its very wide range of geochemical behavior, it is present in most soil, rocks, and water. [Deffeyes, 1980]

Low-dose ionizing radiation is safe. How do we know this? Research in biology & epidemiology.

Life on Earth evolved in a radioactive environment. This background radiation comes from space and Earth. Life has adapted to it to survive. This is true in different ways for the many threats to life including heat, cold, sunshine, and oxygen.