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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Interesting, can you provide more info? Which country? Link?

    Wouldn’t emitting radiation, even at background levels, lead to an increase in radiation as it’s in addition to background stuff?

    Also, there are strong arguments that we no longer need baseload generation and in fact it’s detrimental:

    "No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States….

    Wellinghoff said renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands. Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive, he added.

    “I think baseload capacity is going to become an anachronism,” he said. “Baseload capacity really used to only mean in an economic dispatch, which you dispatch first, what would be the cheapest thing to do. Well, ultimately wind’s going to be the cheapest thing to do, so you’ll dispatch that first.”…

    “What you have to do, is you have to be able to shape it,” he added. “And if you can shape wind and you can effectively get capacity available for you for all your loads.

    “So if you can shape your renewables, you don’t need fossil fuel or nuclear plants to run all the time. And, in fact, most plants running all the time in your system are an impediment because they’re very inflexible. You can’t ramp up and ramp down a nuclear plant. And if you have instead the ability to ramp up and ramp down loads in ways that can shape the entire system, then the old concept of baseload becomes an anachronism.”"

    https://energycentral.com/c/ec/there-really-any-need-baseload-power






  • I’ll be amazed if this ever comes to fruition.

    Generally speaking renewables + storage are the cheapest way of generating non-polluting power. After that there’s nuclear power and it’s much, much more expensive:

    After that, and even more expensive are SMRs. Also, they don’t actually exist yet as a means of generating power.

    From the article, “For example, it has already received the green light from the U.S. Nuclear Registry Commission (the first one to do so) to build its Hermes non-powered demonstrator reactor in Tennessee. Although it still doesn’t have nuclear fuel on-site, this is a major step in its design process, allowing the company to see its system in real life and learn more about its deployment and operation.”