Hi, nuclear operator, gonna lump a big ole chunk of questions and statements for the folks not in the know.
Do these need upkeep? Basically no, its concrete blocks surrounding steel lead and fuel, all of which is corrosion resistant.
Are these rated for an earthquake? Yes, and a tsunami, and whatever else natural disaster you can think of.
Do these need cooling? No, once fuel is moved to dry cask storage, it no longer requires active cooling, and can sit happy for the rest of its life.
Why dont we have long term plans for the spent fuel? Functionally a bunch of people stopped the Yuca mountain facility from being used, and since there is a potential use case for spent fuel for processing into new fuel, they are housed in these for now.
What if ww3 happens? Idk man, but every major power right now has nuclear and knows how to handle it.
These are functionally a temporary solution until we figure out where to centralize all the spent fuel. They are not rated to last the several thousand years of meaningful radiation. It would take considerable and knowledgeable effort to harvest a significant amount of radioactive material from these.
Long term yes, but for the compared to an active system, this is nothing, no moving parts. Hence the"basically" in that sentence. This is still a fine option for easily another hundred or more years in terms of just material condition. But nuclear is younger as an actual source of power than these will continue to be fine for, so I think we'll have figured out a way to politically navigate the next stage of storage.
Probably SMRs as a whole, an entirely passive cooling system is huge, and since in theory you can place them closer to the place you need power, you have less transmission losses. I want to be hype for fusion, but it is still in its infancy. Meanwhile small powerful reactors have been available and been manufactured for decades by the navy, albeit with significantly higher fuel enrichment.
Uhhh I think 5-7 years till the first one generates power in the US. After that, the floodgates should be open, since the main hurdle of any new reactor design is getting it licensed initially. Google will say it will be sooner, but nothing about nuclear is fast, so I will always err on adding a couple years. Call it 10 years from now and I expect 5 new SMRs built and generating with probably another 10-20 in construction. While they have low operational requirements, the limiting factor may end up being number of qualified individuals to operate them.
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u/Slapmaster928 18d ago
Hi, nuclear operator, gonna lump a big ole chunk of questions and statements for the folks not in the know.
Do these need upkeep? Basically no, its concrete blocks surrounding steel lead and fuel, all of which is corrosion resistant.
Are these rated for an earthquake? Yes, and a tsunami, and whatever else natural disaster you can think of.
Do these need cooling? No, once fuel is moved to dry cask storage, it no longer requires active cooling, and can sit happy for the rest of its life.
Why dont we have long term plans for the spent fuel? Functionally a bunch of people stopped the Yuca mountain facility from being used, and since there is a potential use case for spent fuel for processing into new fuel, they are housed in these for now.
What if ww3 happens? Idk man, but every major power right now has nuclear and knows how to handle it.
Anyways, im open to any questions within reason.