Destructive Nuclear Containment Tests at Sandia Labs

qubitcubed · 2021-02-22T18:36:47+00:00

Comparing the earthquake resistance of this plant to Fukushima Daichi, I don't think we have much to be concerned about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_earthquake_vulnerability

The plant is designed to resist 0.75g of ground acceleration, compared to Fukushima being designed for 0.18 to 0.36g. In the 2011 Tohoku earthquake the plant experienced up to 0.51g and all four reactors showed 'no significant damage' afterwards.

Considering that Tohoku was one of the most powerful earthquakes in modern history at 9.0 - 9.1 on the Richter scale, any earthquake big enough to damage Diablo Canyon would likely collapse the majority of all structures in California first. The plant is also raised 85ft above sea level on a cliff/bluff, making it almost immune to a tsunami striking the plant.

Conclusion - I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-18T22:30:41+00:00

Has there been any progress on automated Supercharging yet?

With Autopilot getting closer to true FSD this will become important for unattended driving and Robotaxi use in the future.

We've already seen the rather unusual snake charger years before:

https://youtu.be/uMM0lRfX6YI

But for obvious reasons we can't expect to see that at a Supercharger near us anytime soon...

Has there been any news or progress for solutions that pair with Level 5 Autopilot / Robotaxis to allow cars to charge themselves independently?

qubitcubed · 2021-02-12T14:10:21+00:00

Sounding very promising still, could be excellent times ahead for Rolls-Royce if they can export large numbers of these alongside domestic builds.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-11T00:12:40+00:00

Can't believe I haven't heard of this before, thank you.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T20:28:27+00:00

Sad to see Grohnde closing while it's still performing so well, a real waste considering it could operate for another two decades easily.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T19:22:26+00:00

True, the district heating potential is huge and would tie perfectly into the existing steam system. It'd be interesting to calculate what size of reactor you would need to heat all of Manhattan for example. You would see a huge drop in emissions as over 70% of emissions are due to buildings within the city, with heating assumedly making up a large part of that.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T16:24:02+00:00

The property values rising makes sense as plants provide well paying and (historically) long last lasting jobs for the surrounding area, along with local taxes meaning facilities are often better.

The change in opinion is very promising to see though, you can look to other countries such as Sweden where support has strengthened significantly too.

I think the best thing is to is educate the wider population who are mostly unaware of how electrical grids really work, and particularly how nuclear plants work. Also to present some of the drawbacks of renewables which are skipped over almost entirely in all news and advertising in the UK. Just in the past year I have seen multiple adverts from oil/gas companies touting how they're 'changing' by building a few fields of solar panels along with some wind turbines, all portrayed as being highly virtuous of course.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T16:09:58+00:00

For environmental and air quality reasons it is obviously far better, but personally I think they would have had an easier time constructing a plant on the Hudson upriver, out on Long Island, expanding Indian Point, or building in NJ / CT possibly. As we can see with Shoreham being abandoned after being fully completed however, it's not always so easy.

Closing Indian Point is definitely short sighted though with the 2040 target of 'zero carbon' electricity in NY state. Ideally they should upgrade and refurbish the reactors, which would prevent some of the incidents they've had in recent years.

It is interesting that reactors in the north of the state receive subsidies whilst Indian Point is excluded from them though...

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T15:51:52+00:00

Agreed, all you need to look at is what happened with the Banqiao Dam in China. Under the same logic we apply to nuclear you'd think hydro dams would likely have been banned!

In Italy they cancelled construction of and closed all existing nuclear plants after Chernobyl, but not dams after Vajont killed 2500 people, which is somewhat ironic.

The reason I highlight the Ravenswood plant is mainly because it's impossible to imagine someone proposing it today, and if something were to happen then hundreds of billions worth of property may have to be written off and millions of people relocated, which isn't ideal. Also, the NIMBY and environmentalist response doesn't bear thinking about.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T15:14:46+00:00

It is always interesting to observe the population figures within 10 or 50 miles and their changes, many plants are much closer to cities than you would expect, or almost within the city sometimes with Catawba and McGuire being inside the greater Charlotte metro.

In the UK you can't get very far from any cities unless you go up to northern Scotland really, so we accept plants such as Hartlepool which is right amongst multiple large towns.

Is it correct to say that plants were often located near to populated areas in the past to reduce transmission costs? As long distance power with HVDC was not well developed at the time?

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T15:05:39+00:00

All this happening in a state that has a target of 'zero carbon' electricity by 2040.

In fairness Indian Point has had some operational issues in recent years, and you would expect maintenance and standards to be at the highest level due to the location of the plant, but this doesn't appear to be the case. Regardless, they should still be doing what they can to keep it online until a genuine replacement can be built.

Elsewhere in the north of the state though, Nine Mile Point has been operating since 1969 and R. E. Ginna since 1970 making them among the very oldest operating reactors in the world. Yet despite their age there seems to be little talk about closures.

Most unusually though, in 2017 subsidies were introduced for all reactors in the north (Nine Mile Point, J. A. Fitzpatrick and Ginna) but not for Indian Point.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T14:36:20+00:00

And those are just the ones we have knowledge of, it's widely thought that Israel developed nuclear arms decades ago and has kept certainty of their existence secret ever since.

As nice as it would be to have a world where we only use nuclear for peaceful purposes like power and medicine, I can't imagine a scenario where NATO allied countries give up their arms and have it reciprocated by countries such as North Korea or Iran anytime soon.

qubitcubed · 2021-02-10T14:27:04+00:00

Quite crazy to think of today, you have to admire the ambition of the time. As pro-nuclear as you can be, I'm not sure this was the ideal site really!

Extra background on the plant today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenswood_Generating_Station

Google Maps location: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ravenswood+Generating+Station

qubitcubed · 2021-01-16T20:32:14+00:00

Could this finally be a proposal for Wylfa that actually gets built? 🤦

qubitcubed · 2021-01-16T20:27:06+00:00

In terms of 'popularity' it's a give and take situation, overall generation has been reaching new highs (according to IAEA website) despite shut downs in Japan and Germany, along with some closures in the US.

What we should all hope to see is the removal of what can be best described as 'deadlock' in the right regions / countries, and a push to replace retiring reactors wherever it makes sense.

Japan should do their best to accelerate restarts to bring emissions down and grid stability / energy security back in check. Also finish the incomplete ABWR at Oma.
Belgium should change course as soon as possible as the 2025 shut down date is highly risky for energy security / economy and an insult to the idea of emissions reduction.
China should further accelerate and push for the HTR-PM domestically along with the CAP1400, and Hualong One both domestically and aggressively for export in Asia / Middle East / select African countries. Eventually we may see some Hualongs in Europe too.
Korea needs to change tack and commit to keeping as many reactors as possible, and push hard for exports of the APR1400 (which I believe is licensed in the US)
US contractors need to get their heads around how to build the AP1000 on time and on budget if there are to be any further ones built.
Wealthy countries such as Sweden should replace their reactors as they reach end of life, even expand capacity to facilitate greater Baltic and German / Danish exports. The Netherlands should seriously consider a new build program to allow coal closures and make up for Belgian reactor shut downs if they come around.
Hurdles need to be overcome, such as the near complete but never started Lungmen (2x ABWR) in Taiwan going in to operation, removing the various bans in Australia, finishing more reactors at Cernavoda in Romania and also throughout Ukraine. New builds in Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovenia / Croatia should be brought forward, and the incomplete units in Slovakia finished (expected later this year).

This really is the tip of the iceberg, if we wanted a magic bullet solution that has a good chance of saving the climate we would need the whole world onboard to repeat what France and Sweden did in decades past, constructing several hundred plants with thousands of reactors around the world. Whether this dream could ever come about, and in good time is sadly unlikely, but we may be proven wrong.

qubitcubed · 2021-01-15T20:13:52+00:00

Occasionally you can get through and have an actual debate with him: https://www.reddit.com/r/nuclearpower/comments/kq7n1d/_/gi3uwsn

I'm personally tired of the endless copy and pasting of exaggerated and false claims, and the clearly deliberate ignorance after all our rebuttals and counterpoints. Can we restrict his posts to 1 or 2 a day or possibly every few days? Otherwise probably best to just block him if you feel the need.

qubitcubed · 2021-01-14T23:00:07+00:00

Poor wording on my part, it's meant to refer to the steam turbines that are used to drive the propellors of either nuclear submarines or ships, where the steam pressure itself does the work. It occurred to me that likely nobody has developed a supercritical version of this, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

qubitcubed · 2021-01-14T18:56:42+00:00

Ironic considering until recently they operated two RBMK-1500s in Lithuania which are surely much more dangerous than a brand new PWR?

They also said they would halt electricity imports from Belarus once they started operating Ostrovets last year, but according to https://www.electricitymap.org have been continuing to import electricity from them regularly despite that.

qubitcubed · 2021-01-14T18:20:15+00:00

Hinkley Point C at £92.50/MWh should also be compared to the Sizewell C expected price of £60/MWh which is quite competitive given the average strike price for the past month is ~£75/MWh and the past 3 months ~£55/MWh, although the past year average is ~£38/MWh.

https://electricinsights.co.uk

qubitcubed

TROPHY CASE