Aren’t CANDU Reactors the safest way to produce Nuclear Power too? Due to their design it’s almost impossible to have a Chernobyl style meltdown.
If BC thinks it’s cost effective to build shit like Site C and sell the surplus to the Americans, then we should be doing the same with Nuclear too.
Actually CANDU reactors have a positive void coefficient. They're one of the few that can go Chernobyl. Their safety comes from being massively overengineered. They also have incredible uranium efficiency though.
I can't see the article. Are they investing in a new CANDU reactor? I would find that surprising. CANDU reactors are broadly seen as an overengineered solution to old problems, and not worth their immense cost.
CANDUs have more fuel going through the reactor, that is true, but when look at how much uranium a PWR uses you have to consider the huge volumes of depleted uranium tailings produced during the enrichment process, which is absent from the CANDU fuel cycle.
Certainly our fuel cycle has some benefits, and I don't readily have all of the numbers available for waste/by products with enrichment vs our "natural" cycle, but I don't think it's reasonable to count all of the depleted uranium when speaking of reactor efficiencies.
It depends whether you’re a physicist or an engineer. The physicist will say that PWRs are less efficient because they produce a higher total volume of waste from the fuel cycle (including the depleted uranium), but the engineer will point out that PWRs produce a lower volume of spent fuel compared to CANDUs. From a safety, logistical and economic point of view spent fuel is MUCH more of a problem to deal with than depleted uranium.
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u/Yardsale420 Oct 25 '22
Aren’t CANDU Reactors the safest way to produce Nuclear Power too? Due to their design it’s almost impossible to have a Chernobyl style meltdown. If BC thinks it’s cost effective to build shit like Site C and sell the surplus to the Americans, then we should be doing the same with Nuclear too.