How to be Allowed to Build

The need for electricity over time in the US and why there was a huge construction period in the 1970’s. The process to build a nuclear power plant in the US during that time period including getting a construction permit, creating an Environmental Impact Statement, Preliminary Safety Analysis Report, and Final Safety Analysis Report. All the agencies which approve and work on these, including the legal process for approval and appeals and the time it takes to go through this process. How this is different in France. How this process has been changed and exits today.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Ive been telling every one of my friends the following for years: You can be against Climate Change or against Nuclear Power, you cant be against both.

[@zapfanzapfan]

The environmental movement was so against nuclear that instead more coal power plants were built... ah, the irony...

[@zapfanzapfan]

The best advice is, be more cynical! :-)

[@zapfanzapfan]

Really big turbines might require such distances to not interfere with each other but those are the sizes built off shore where blades don't have to be transported by truck. 5 rotor-diameters apart is the rule of thumb I think?

[@dewiz9596]

WhiteShadow2k1 hmmm. . . So your living room revolves around the wind turbine tower so that it stays lined up with the sun? Try another one. . .

[@uploadJ]

@Matt S re: "Unless your window is directly behind a wind turbine, the shadows won't affect you." Is the concept of a setting sun beyond your comprehension? Think about it, long shadows cast by a tall windmill ...

[@uploadJ]

@Bram Moerman re: "hmmm. . . So your living room revolves around the wind turbine" Another ''moran'' displaying those outstanding mental qualities; Think about the SHADOWS cast, moran, over the course of a day.

[@kevinvoogd5771]

Your KZbin channel is so valuable, thank you!

[@Juanito_Peligroso]

We need Nuclear power. You CAN build it in my backyard.

[@Damocles16]

Can we build it for you? ... We really need the market share now. (From France)

[@777jones]

I say build modules at existing nuclear facilities. Those sites should provide the right security and precedents on the community. Nuclear plants are good citizens. Good, steady jobs and no pollution.

[@Damocles16]

@Matt S well, fortunately, no more countries will repeat Germany's mistake! CO2 réduction remains the most critical priority now. And hopefully... We'll soon finish our damned Gen.3 reactor in France before the end of Brexit... But that's true, there is very little pride or empathy regarding the nuclear industry. Even in France during the 2000's, when our compagnies argueably leaded that business. Before the chinese kicker in...

[@Damocles16]

@Matt S That is twisted... I thought Donald T was all about gas, and "very clean coal" brought by brave hardworking miners... But nuclear energy isn't such a crucial issue for them... In France it's 75% of total électricity consumption... But I feel it's a little bit less criticized now that there is a consensus on global warming. We'll see!

[@justgivemethetruth]

As usual, and excellent presentation. Thank you.

[@madzen112]

Building a powerplant almost looks like a whole saga

[@trosati]

Thanks for this.

[@TheRantingCabbie]

I kept the garage door closed building mine so no one would know. No appeals or complaints.

[@jasonbirchoff2605]

I get why the safety analysis report is needed.. Give the time this was thought out. every reactor was a special snowflake following a general guideline. But if your building like the french did. Basically stamping out the exact same thing with the exact same materials and devices. That step should be optional in its place should be a review of the preliminary where the goal of the review is to proof what you built matched what you said you would build. Within some error bars if thats the case you should not need to do the safety analysis report. just notify the stake holders that you built to spec. I guess that makes too much sense to be done that way

[@nathanhaiduk2957]

I would have enjoyed you as a physics professor I think. Mine were pretty cool too, though, for the most part

[@dwayne7356]

And then there is the costly lawsuits stating that somewhere in the process somebody didn't follow the rules and the construction should be stopped. Also there was the re-engineering during construction due to an industry event.

[@davidelliott5843]

The big advantage with molten salt reactors is their small size. They don’t need a huge containment dome and have far less plant (pumps etc) and far fewer safety systems. But they can be built with smaller output and still be highly profitable. Smaller means easier site planning. Their road block is regulatory. The rules and thinking are all geared to the particular risks of PWR. You cannot tick boxes when your plant does not contain the things that need to be ticked off. New regs are needed and they are preventing progress.

[@JohnMaxGriffin]

Molten salt reactors have been around since the US was first building nuclear reactors. The second ever naval reactor was an MSR. The problems with the coolant drove the Office of Naval Reactors to literally pull the plant out of the boat and rebuild the propulsion system around a PWR. The Navy never bothered themselves with MSRs again. The reason regulations seem to be built around LWR technology is that, very early in the industry’s existence, LWRs were found to be the best compromise between all the factors one cares about when designing and operating a nuclear plant. Other designs have been tried since but they just haven’t shown much benefit if any. What reason is there to think things would be different now? Why should scarce resources be invested in the direction of MSRs?

[@777jones]

John Griffin your post makes sense. But resources are not that scarce... the energy industry is very large. People are very interested in clean energy. There is a lot of money in clean energy now.

[@JohnMaxGriffin]

@@777jones Resources are always scarce. And MSRs are no cleaner than PWRs, actually probably less. So what does interest in clean energy have to do with MSRs?

[@Xylos144]

@@JohnMaxGriffin primarily saftey and cost. MSRs don't need to be built with nearly the degree of quality that PWRs require, because they did not need to contain massive, explosive pressures. Meanwhile the ability to move the fuel (read, radiating decay products) during a shutdown allows for passive, deterministic saftey rather than active, engineered saftey. You don't need a low, medium, and high pressure water injection system (plus a seperate, non-common mode redundant system of each) to ensure the core remains covered during a shutdown. You don't actually have to worry about the core being 'uncovered' or entering a 'meltdown' scenario at all. The concept doesn't apply. And finally if something somehow manages to go wrong and the reactor itself is breached... an MSR does not contain explosive pressures so no radioactive particles will be injected into the air to end up as fallout. The differed between a PWR and an MSR is that between a propane tank and a gas can. Which one is more expensive and more heavily built? And which one actually offers more danger in case of failure?

[@JohnMaxGriffin]

​@@Xylos144 I understand the advantageous properties of MSRs when it comes to LOC accidents. The safety advantages you're talking about though are not reason enough to wait until commercial MSRs can get licensing before we start building new reactors at a large scale. Also, the inherent core safety achievable with MSRs (and other designs following a similar concept) carry with them many disadvantages that have long been determined to outweigh the benefits. Even though yes, an MSR doesn't require a pressure vessel of the same tensile strength as a LWR for it to operate, that is more than offset by the vessel's need to withstand very high temperatures. Historical MSRs have used Inconel 600 as the primary structural material rather than stainless 316, which needless to say, throws cost savings on pressure resistance right out the window. And nowadays even Inconel 600 isn't considered good enough, the metallurgy is on to Hastelloy-N. And the plant still needs to be able to withstand, among other things, a 9/11-style terrorist attack. Just because the reactor itself is unlikely to cause an explosion doesn't mean an explosion couldn't be created there that would put TMI to shame. The general public wouldn't care that it required something as extreme as the force of a passenger jet or a high explosive to throw radioactive debris everywhere, just like the public didn't care that it required a 9.1 Mw earthquake and a 40-ft tsunami to wreck Fukushima-Daiichi. So you still need some pretty serious structural strength in both the containment building and the reactor vessel.

[@stephensands3485]

Great example of how overregulation and government bureaucracy can destroy the financial incentives to do otherwise good things (like building nuclear power plants). You see similar things happening in a variety of other industries as well (e.g., pharma), and it ends up both stymieing development of beneficial things and limiting competition to only a handful of huge corporations which can afford to spend the time and money necessary to make it through all of the red tape (which also artificially creates an oligopoly).

[@RiDankulous]

It could be good for nuclear expansion to be fostered with strong but not cumbersome oversight from the NRC. The *theory* of pebble bed is good but figure out the points of failure has yet to be done because as with anything the testing will show any potential flaws. I would assume a big one is the durability of the parts, most notably the pebbles and yeah the theory is good assuming the manufacturing is good. If they get cheap on components who knows, so inspection by the NRC on random subset of pellets could be useful, before and after each of their use.

[@sarcasmo57]

Well that's a relief. Ok, I'll build one.

[@Ryterick]

Check-out safe ThoriumElectricUSA.com no government funding - replace closed coal and out-dated nuclear power plants - no CO2 release.

[@freddyrosenberg9288]

Have you tried writing backwards? It's HARD! He makes it look so easy.

[@sabretechv2]

It’s flipped in post

[@bipolarminddroppings]

I honestly cant believe people think he actually writes backwards. You only need to look at his jacket and tie to see its been flipped. Probably not even done in post since you can just flip any modern webcam with the touch of a virtual button while recording.

[@stanleymcomber4844]

Can anyone say - Sears Club? the problems and regulations. Nuclear is our only real salvation for power.

[@madzen112]

Just curious, how fast could the Soviet Union or China build them?

[@michaelzlprime]

It seems to me that for such complex projects such as nuclear power plants, there is a definite advantage to government-owned (through a national power company) vs private market. That idea is anathema to the American political system, but the actual results from around the world don't lie.

[@xeekk]

The problem wasn't because it's private vs not private, the problem is the regulation and permit hurdles which was what this video talked about.

[@jessethomas7949]

A single design would have helped.

[@mikebetts2046]

We would get better results if the government forced everyone to eat broccoli three times per week. Results and morality are not always directly related.

[@poiuytrewqqwertyufy]

He was going to say « pressure groups » ahahah

[@MikeMiller-cq7tu]

That pause was hilarious

[@dauber1828]

Molten salt

[@joecambodia1326]

Something, anything..

[@luistapia1942]

The system Is almost made it to ween us off nuclear

[@xeekk]

What is "the system" you speak of?

[@andrebazenga7485]

Pretty sure those appeals are sponsored by coal and gas lobbies, no point in blaming the public. Blame the "game".

[@roblangada4516]

Just as much the fossil fuel lobbies as the "renewable" lobbies, they're both against nuclear because anyone who knows the objective science, knows none of those things can compete with nuclear on a cost per KwH or injury/death per KwH basis. Not to mention, nuclear is much, much better for the environment. Out of all the renewables, geothermal and maybe tidal power (jury is out on this one, we haven't been using them enough yet to determine if they hurt marine life) are the only ones that cause less impact on the ecosystem. So instead of try to compete on an even playing field when they know they can't win, they lobby for regulation against their competitor, having the result of artificially raising the cost per KwH for nuclear.

[@icthulu]

Or a fun solution, build in Mexico and sell that to the US.

[@Damocles16]

And make Mexico pay for the plant ! 😆

[@drongomaster]

no sound on this video

[@jlems56]

After watching these video's, a fair amount of my reluctance to embrace nuclear energy has been reduced. HOWEVER...it's not the technology that scares me, it's the people and the process. When there is this much money involved, I don't trust the people to execute the plan without shortcuts.

[@Damocles16]

Well, he has a message in his videos about nuclear incidents that you should hear. He basically says "don't trust the people, trust sciences". Indeed gen 3 powerplants are designed to cool down in case of emergency DESPITE the operators going nuts! Some kind of Passive thermal control thing...

[@dewiz9596]

Stop watching Homer. . .

[@justgivemethetruth]

The US v. France ... the major benefits of socialism and rationality.

[@joecambodia1326]

Taint no way you can build a nuke plant in the USA 🇺🇸 in 4-5 years. More like 14-15.

[@mattgray666]

Has anyone seriously considered building nuclear plants offshore?

[@GeneralBlackNorway]

Russians have made a floating nuclear power plant that they towed from St. Petersburg around Scandinavia to the northern side of Siberia to provide power to their people in remote places.

[@grumpy3543]

They are working on a floating thorium plant right now. It’s on KZbin

[@cptnoremac]

There's no apostrophe in 1970s. Great series, though!

[@yashovardhandubey5252]

It takes 10 years to probably make a plant.... No hell no.... Let's just choke the world on more carbon and then cry about plantation drives.... Mfs