Originally published at: Denver Airport to Study Nuclear Power Option - AVweb
Small modular reactor proposal aims for clean, consistent energy supply
As a former Navy reactor operator I have to agree with ALL the comments in the article, both pro and con.
Waste is the key concern for me. The Navy has procedures and facilities for handling expended reactor cores, civilian plants do not. Cores are stored on site until there is a safer place to put them.
If the currrent administration thinks they can win elections without Nevada, maybe they’ll push for final approval of the long planned storage site there at Yucca Mountain.
Disposal of nuclear waste needs more effort but also examination of potential for re-use. Some scientists think it is feasible, but government may not want private enterprises to be in possession of it.
I read that Ukraine recycles in one nuclear power station. (It inherited several from the USSR.)
Certainly don’t need the leaking liquids mess aat Hanford WA.
The important thing that the article failed to address (or maybe the airport press release didn’t mention it) is what kind of reactor is it? If it’s uranium, then all the comments and risk about waste, ability to use the fuel to make a bomb, etc. apply. And how can you consider uranium reactors ‘clean’ when the ‘exhaust’ remains lethal for 1000’s of years? That’s just stupid marketing.
However, thorium small reactors look very promising, and I think India and China have made a lot of progress with this. From what I’ve read, thorium is the way to go - waste is much more managable, and it’ll actually burn up radioactive waste. And you can’t make a bomb from it. And you can make them neighborhood-sized. Or one could power a containerized cargo ship instead of by polluting fossil fuel engines. We should be going in this direction, not the uranium direction.
New high temperature fast (neutron velocity) reactors can actually burn existing nuclear waste after startup. They also burn most of the fuel and produce far less waste.and are more energy efficient than the existing light water reactors. I would consider them the safest and greenest source of power.
Mr. Drake has done his homework - these are the safest, least wasteful, power generation units available to us. The other green options, wind and solar, produce far more waste.
This really sounds like a way to introduce it to the public, so they can get their heads around it, before they do it. Standard practice in our politicized world.