A car where every part needs government certification- you just described an airplane. That is the reason all airplanes have had the same basic shape and technology since the 1960s.
This is an interesting counterpoint. Yes, jets are very heavily regulated. But we do build them on assembly lines. They do benefit from learning by doing and continuous incremental improvement. Which is why airliners today are 8 times as fuel efficient as they were in 1970, even though they kinda look the same!!
If nuclear energy today cost an eighth of what it did in 1970, nuclear would own the electricity market. There’d be no coal generation, it just wouldn’t be able to compete. But we stopped building them, so we stopped getting better at building them, so…
Yes, for jets that carry people commercially as there is a highly regulated market that can support it. If you look at general aviation and other less commercial areas it looks entirely different. Getting a pilots license in the US involves flying museum pieces that were certificated in the 1930s-1950s…
Don’t worry, I am completely in agreement on the nuclear point!
It seems that the green competition for small modular nuclear reactorsvyo provide steady power will come down to:
1. Geothermal fracking
2. Batteries + Solar + Wind
3. Gas turbine with carbon capture.
Have you ever worked through a comparison of these four options estimating timing, upfront costs, operating costs, technological uncertainty, political uncertainty and long-term safety?
The comparison has to be between systems that satisfy these constraints: 1) power available 8760 hours/year 2) constant voltage and 3) constant frequency. No matter what the mix of generating technologies, the unforgiving physics of power grids require these constraints be met. Adding the constraint of low- or zero-emissions, adds another requirement. Post-combustion CCS applied to gas turbines (or coal plants) adds costs and energy penalties. For variable inverter-based generation (solar and wind) the added transmission, over-building to account for low capacity factors, grid-forming and firming technologies (batteries, synchronous condensers, gas peaking plants, etc.) all should be taken into account in any cost comparison.
It’s costs, but not only costs. Solar + batteries is a more “democratic” technology. Many people can have them without much complication, and with a modern and intelligent network, it makes the system resilient.
A technology like nuclear requires a militarized-style procurement of the fuel and it is a liability in case of conflict and/or terrorism.
The same process described would result in small nuclear reactors economical enough to power transport ships, replacing all the bunker crude currently used as fuel. Instead, ship powering nuclear reactors are so expensive that only the military uses them. The US Navy has 6,200 reactor years of operation, and counting, without a single radiological accident. No one on these ships has ever exceeded any Federal radiation limit or been harmed by radiation from the reactors. Transport ships are responsible for about 3% of global carbon emissions.
The first (and still only) nuclear-powered merchant ship was the Savannah, launched in 1959 and in service until 1971. It was ordered as a demonstration project by President Eisenhower. It demonstrated that such a ship could be built, but not economically. It also demonstrated, eventually, that ships offering a combination of passenger and break-bulk freight transport were not viable in the age of container ships, jet passenger travel, and dedicated cruise ships. Here's an interesting short video about the NS Savannah. https://youtu.be/UZXQCkbFg2c?is=lPAcfWZtDDr5UAyk
I agree that it's worth a fresh look at nuclear power for large commercial vessels.
This really made me think about how much we underestimate the complexity hidden inside the things we use every day. Building a car from scratch isn’t just about assembling parts, it’s about understanding how hundreds of systems depend on one another. Great reminder that complexity is often invisible until you try to build something yourself. 🚗
I like your point that unique solutions to similar problems becomes in itself a barrier to building at scale. That said, my first thought about your analogy was, "getting a lemon of a car sucks - getting a lemon of a reactor really fucking sucks." Although that can still happen with things as they are, and unique solutions can cause unforced errors. I like your response to the poster mentioning planes, as production of those at scale still addresses the point that quality assurance and mechanical flaws can have catastrophic consequences that are controlled for. Right now, I'm thinking of Kyle Hill (YouTube science presenter) referencing the excellent safety standards of the US nuclear industry. There can be a way forward in this.
I don't see a path to lowering carbon emissions without a significant buildup of nuclear energy. But the environmental movements in Western Europe were born from resistance to nuclear energy and they have completely tied their identity to this issue. Common sense might very well prevail in the end, but it will make the path more difficult
Could it be that a nuclear reactor is somewhat more complicated than a car, and that a reactor accident has different consequences than a car accident?
That's a good point, they have very different consequences. If we look at fatalities + injuries per hour of operation, we see that cars are slightly more dangerous than nuclear power plants, while providing orders of magnitude less benefit (an hour of car operation moves a few people a few miles, while an hour of nuclear power plant operation provides gigawatts of power to thousands of people)! And that's not even considering the environmental impacts of cars!
Environmentally speaking, both zones are literally already fine, with wildlife thriving. Also, It would most likely be safe for humans to live in them. The environmental impacts of cars has very literally been many, many, many orders of magnitude worse than the worlds nuclear fleet.
what "company" is cleaning up all the pollution from the previous uranium mining? When will the true costs of nuclear power be included? Monticello nuclear power plant just leaked tritium into the Mississippi river at hundreds of levels beyond the EPA safe level. That is the drinking water for millions of people. Who is cleaning up the two-headed babies from Depleted uranium weapons that are still being used? It's easy to promote "Atoms for Peace" by ignoring the nuclear waste being stored on native american reservations. Have you ever been to Pine Ridge reservation? I was shown a local creek polluted by uranium mining - Inila Wakan showed me. The nuclear power industry is rife with pollution, corruption and military ties but you can ignore all that if you want to. Meanwhile more nuclear power plants melt down from abrupt global warming disasters. Nukewatch of Luke, WI has more details but you choose self-censorship because that is more "efficient." hahaha.
So how is that gonna look at abrupt global warming wipes out the 400 plus nuclear power plants still running? Have you ever searched "biological annihilation" into googlescholar? You think nuclear radiation death is only bad in comparison to death by other energy sources? 80% of oil and coal is from algae. How many immature deaths has photosynthesis caused on Earth? hahaha. The future of life on Earth is algae - one way or another. Photosynthesis is the only zero-cost energy on Earth because blue-green algae relies on quantum nonlocality to transfer photons to electrons.
A car where every part needs government certification- you just described an airplane. That is the reason all airplanes have had the same basic shape and technology since the 1960s.
This is an interesting counterpoint. Yes, jets are very heavily regulated. But we do build them on assembly lines. They do benefit from learning by doing and continuous incremental improvement. Which is why airliners today are 8 times as fuel efficient as they were in 1970, even though they kinda look the same!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
If nuclear energy today cost an eighth of what it did in 1970, nuclear would own the electricity market. There’d be no coal generation, it just wouldn’t be able to compete. But we stopped building them, so we stopped getting better at building them, so…
Yes, for jets that carry people commercially as there is a highly regulated market that can support it. If you look at general aviation and other less commercial areas it looks entirely different. Getting a pilots license in the US involves flying museum pieces that were certificated in the 1930s-1950s…
Don’t worry, I am completely in agreement on the nuclear point!
It seems that the green competition for small modular nuclear reactorsvyo provide steady power will come down to:
1. Geothermal fracking
2. Batteries + Solar + Wind
3. Gas turbine with carbon capture.
Have you ever worked through a comparison of these four options estimating timing, upfront costs, operating costs, technological uncertainty, political uncertainty and long-term safety?
Most of our team spends most of its time doing exactly that!!
https://anthropoceneinstitute.com/
The comparison has to be between systems that satisfy these constraints: 1) power available 8760 hours/year 2) constant voltage and 3) constant frequency. No matter what the mix of generating technologies, the unforgiving physics of power grids require these constraints be met. Adding the constraint of low- or zero-emissions, adds another requirement. Post-combustion CCS applied to gas turbines (or coal plants) adds costs and energy penalties. For variable inverter-based generation (solar and wind) the added transmission, over-building to account for low capacity factors, grid-forming and firming technologies (batteries, synchronous condensers, gas peaking plants, etc.) all should be taken into account in any cost comparison.
It’s costs, but not only costs. Solar + batteries is a more “democratic” technology. Many people can have them without much complication, and with a modern and intelligent network, it makes the system resilient.
A technology like nuclear requires a militarized-style procurement of the fuel and it is a liability in case of conflict and/or terrorism.
The same process described would result in small nuclear reactors economical enough to power transport ships, replacing all the bunker crude currently used as fuel. Instead, ship powering nuclear reactors are so expensive that only the military uses them. The US Navy has 6,200 reactor years of operation, and counting, without a single radiological accident. No one on these ships has ever exceeded any Federal radiation limit or been harmed by radiation from the reactors. Transport ships are responsible for about 3% of global carbon emissions.
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/hd-hyundai-abs-plan-nuclear-powered-cargo-ship
People are working on it!!
The first (and still only) nuclear-powered merchant ship was the Savannah, launched in 1959 and in service until 1971. It was ordered as a demonstration project by President Eisenhower. It demonstrated that such a ship could be built, but not economically. It also demonstrated, eventually, that ships offering a combination of passenger and break-bulk freight transport were not viable in the age of container ships, jet passenger travel, and dedicated cruise ships. Here's an interesting short video about the NS Savannah. https://youtu.be/UZXQCkbFg2c?is=lPAcfWZtDDr5UAyk
I agree that it's worth a fresh look at nuclear power for large commercial vessels.
This really made me think about how much we underestimate the complexity hidden inside the things we use every day. Building a car from scratch isn’t just about assembling parts, it’s about understanding how hundreds of systems depend on one another. Great reminder that complexity is often invisible until you try to build something yourself. 🚗
I like your point that unique solutions to similar problems becomes in itself a barrier to building at scale. That said, my first thought about your analogy was, "getting a lemon of a car sucks - getting a lemon of a reactor really fucking sucks." Although that can still happen with things as they are, and unique solutions can cause unforced errors. I like your response to the poster mentioning planes, as production of those at scale still addresses the point that quality assurance and mechanical flaws can have catastrophic consequences that are controlled for. Right now, I'm thinking of Kyle Hill (YouTube science presenter) referencing the excellent safety standards of the US nuclear industry. There can be a way forward in this.
I don't see a path to lowering carbon emissions without a significant buildup of nuclear energy. But the environmental movements in Western Europe were born from resistance to nuclear energy and they have completely tied their identity to this issue. Common sense might very well prevail in the end, but it will make the path more difficult
Could it be that a nuclear reactor is somewhat more complicated than a car, and that a reactor accident has different consequences than a car accident?
That's a good point, they have very different consequences. If we look at fatalities + injuries per hour of operation, we see that cars are slightly more dangerous than nuclear power plants, while providing orders of magnitude less benefit (an hour of car operation moves a few people a few miles, while an hour of nuclear power plant operation provides gigawatts of power to thousands of people)! And that's not even considering the environmental impacts of cars!
When it comes to environmental impact, consider Tschernobyl, Fukuchima, environmental impact for centuries to come.
Without looking it up, what’s your best estimate of deaths from radiation from Fukushima?
Environmentally speaking, both zones are literally already fine, with wildlife thriving. Also, It would most likely be safe for humans to live in them. The environmental impacts of cars has very literally been many, many, many orders of magnitude worse than the worlds nuclear fleet.
what "company" is cleaning up all the pollution from the previous uranium mining? When will the true costs of nuclear power be included? Monticello nuclear power plant just leaked tritium into the Mississippi river at hundreds of levels beyond the EPA safe level. That is the drinking water for millions of people. Who is cleaning up the two-headed babies from Depleted uranium weapons that are still being used? It's easy to promote "Atoms for Peace" by ignoring the nuclear waste being stored on native american reservations. Have you ever been to Pine Ridge reservation? I was shown a local creek polluted by uranium mining - Inila Wakan showed me. The nuclear power industry is rife with pollution, corruption and military ties but you can ignore all that if you want to. Meanwhile more nuclear power plants melt down from abrupt global warming disasters. Nukewatch of Luke, WI has more details but you choose self-censorship because that is more "efficient." hahaha.
Premature deaths from fossil fuel pollution in 2025: 8,000,000.
Premature deaths from nuclear in 2025: zero.
Structural racism isn't your excuse for wrong stats. Thanks for confirming that you've never even been to a native american reservation.
Thanks for dismissing statistics with your feelings
China's dumping ground: Genocide through nuclear ecocide in Tibet
CM Heischmidt - Penn St. Envtl. L. Rev., 2009 - HeinOnline
… between exposure to uranium and the high death rate in Tibet. For … Tibet, the people living
near uranium mines and nuclear facilities experience similar mysterious illnesses and deaths…
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Application in Tibet of the Principles on Human Rights and the Environment
LS Ziemer - Harv. Hum. Rts. J., 2001 - HeinOnline
… the nearby uranium mines caused the fatal illness.123 In the early 1990s, over three years
time, the Tibetan village near the Ngaba Prefecture uranium mine experienced the deaths of …
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[BOOK] Toxic Tibet under Nuclear China
MG Chitkara - 1996 - books.google.com
… Since the Chinese occupied our land they have sought to exploit Tibet's previously untapped
uranium deposits. They have sited nuclear weapons bases at various locations on the …
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[PDF] academia.edu
Invisible People, Pollution, and Places: Nuclear Contamination on the Tibetan Plateau, Himalayan Rivers, and Water Users
A Brown - East Asia's Renewed Respect for the Rule of Law in …, 2015 - books.google.com
… uranium mining is currently occurring in Tibetan provinces (ie Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, and
Yunnan) in two separate documents, but numerous reports from Tibetans … health or death of …
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[PDF] tandfonline.com
Environmental alert on the Tibetan Plateau
ATJ Shouse - Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 1993 - Taylor & Francis
… In eastern Tibet (Amdo) a number of Tibetan villagers living … uranium mine died after drinking
water polluted by mine waste. Another report on the death of many cattle around the mine, …
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yeah looks like my comments are being censored? Nice.
Now compare that to the similar impact from every other energy source.
Pretty sure Nuclear comes out looking good per kw/h
So how is that gonna look at abrupt global warming wipes out the 400 plus nuclear power plants still running? Have you ever searched "biological annihilation" into googlescholar? You think nuclear radiation death is only bad in comparison to death by other energy sources? 80% of oil and coal is from algae. How many immature deaths has photosynthesis caused on Earth? hahaha. The future of life on Earth is algae - one way or another. Photosynthesis is the only zero-cost energy on Earth because blue-green algae relies on quantum nonlocality to transfer photons to electrons.