This Nuclear Plant is Built in 3 Months

Can nuclear power be as scalable as solar?
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[@manup1931]

3 month of building but 13 years of lawsuits and politics.

[@Fil13]

​@@user-nu1vn3yy9s you said so many wrong things i don't even know where to start

[@3tronicum]

@@Fil13 Well, name one insurance company that will take over the risk of a never been built micro nuclear plant.

[@TheLegoPerson]

​@@user-nu1vn3yy9s people like you are holding back society

[@fernbedek6302]

@@3tronicumCapitalism killing innovation due to it having an unclear profit margin isn’t really a good argument against innovation.

[@ClementinesmWTF]

@@3tronicum given that those insurance companies aren’t usually run by morons who reactively reject nuclear bc of tropes straight out of the 1970s, probably any insurance company that regularly insures other power plants would be completely fine with insuring these

[@kentslocum]

I was going to say that one of the big problems with big businesses constructing their own power plants is that it reduces the economies of scale that large utilities provide to customers, but then he pointed out that the whole problem is that large utilities aren't reliable anymore. So yeah, utilities will simply pass higher costs onto individuals.

[@Nill757]

Factories often build their own power plant. Large advantages for doing so, and they all would except traditionally they have to acquire the same steady and expensive fuel supply as the utility power (gas, diesel), along with heavy transport or fuel storage into their plant, ie pipeline or train tracks or fuel depot. Now comes the possibility of cheap and fast to build nuclear, that needs no fuel at all for six years?? Unless regulators and competition stop it, factory nuclear will quickly run the table.

[@pin65371]

I'd think the businesses would most likely build a bit more than they need so if anything is down for maintenance they still have their power requirements. If that business just sold that extra power to the grid they could cover the costs of having a backup.

[@kentslocum]

@@pin65371 Utilities don't want customers to feed electricity back into the grid. Not only is it expensive for the utility to hook up customers for this two-way electricity distribution, but they usually have to commit to paying customers for the electricity they provide, which is usually a higher rate than the market rate from the electricity grid. It might be a bit easier for a well-funded industrial factory to clear these hurdles, but homeowners trying to install rooftop solar panels are often enmeshed in mountains of red tape.

[@Nill757]

@@pin65371 they’ll keep a grid connect and use it for a couple weeks every 6 yr, or rent some big diesel gensets.

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka Yes? Well a community could buy one of these rigs to run a town, more cheaply than some diesel generators with monthly diesel. Where in the world does that no profit thing work, for energy, clothes, food?

[@Toefoo100]

I feel like everytime someone makes a video on nuclear power and choose to explain fission vs fusion it's only to pad out the run time.

[@michaelodetola]

Not everyone understands it

[@nedward.7442]

@@michaelodetola These are their problems. Not to mention the fact that from school years they should at least know about the fission of nuclei by neutrons, and everything else can be found on the Internet.

[@Ludix147]

This is actually the first time someone explained to me why modular reactors make sense

[@bunsw2070]

The new reactors that just started up in Georgia, the same ones that South Carolina pulled the plug on after wasting $9 billion, are modular. Nuclear reactors are spectacularly dangerous. They store the spent fuel in cooling pools that constantly circulate cool water over the spent rods for 5 years. If the grid went down, let's say - because of solar flares, the plant only has fuel on hand to keep running the pumps for 14 to 30 days. After that it would be Chernobyl times 10,000 at least. Continental depopulation for 250,000 years. After Covid and the Ukraine war do you trust your government to keep things from being screwed up? I work in heavy industry. The government and corporate management are so technically incompetent it can hardly be believed. And it's getting worse all the time. They just invent lies for everything. One of my best friends worked as a Millwright mechanic in nuclear for over a decade. I asked him why he didn't go work at the nuclear plants near us that are desperate for skilled trades. He said that because of his trade he'd have to work in the "hot zone" and he didn't want any more exposure in his lifetime. At these plants many workers sit in the cafeteria and do nothing for years because they are monitored for radiation exposure. They can only be exposed to a certain amount averaged out over 3 years. Obviously, many of them are beyond their limit. I'm not anti-nuclear. It's just that this video is pure sales. Government and management cannot be trusted with the time of day. What would this plant do in the event of a missile attack? Who would pay the price after the corporation went bankrupt and the executives moved away? How many Ukraine oligarchs still live in Ukraine? I thought so. The people making these videos have zero technical knowledge. Next thing they'll be making videos about how hydrogen or ammonia are the solution to global warming. If they had any knowledge of chemistry or epistemology they wouldn't be making these foolish videos. They need to go to school.

[@Juggernautdemon]

@@bunsw2070 Tell me you have little to no understanding of radiation without telling so.

[@amaury784]

@@bunsw2070 dude.. please shut up, you have no idea what you're talking about

[@amaury784]

@@bunsw2070 be careful you confirm the stereotype that says Americans are uneducated morons

[@smplfi9859]

Don't pretend like you understood them before then....

[@miguelsousa9802]

Using nuclear to power industry is an amazing concept. However, one can't help but feel skeptical about this particular company. Most SMRs are given timelines as short as 2030. This includes already licensed ones, like GE-Hitachi, NuScale, etc, who spent years going through the regulatory process. LastEnergy, despite using "proven and well-known" technology, is not approved by any regulator. In fact, there is no data available on their final design, nor any regulatory process ongoing. And yet, they claim that they can deploy one as soon as 2025. It is nice to challenge the status-quo - current regulatory processes do take an awful long-time, especially for designs like this, which have a very conservative design. However, heavily marketing that you can deploy this reactor in 2 years, when your competitors need decades, is extremely hard to believe, and can end up giving a worst image to the nuclear industry if failed to deliver.

[@inboxnews]

Worst imagine?

[@muten861]

I wouldn't go to this Tech-BS-Videos. As long a you you some nuclear fuel onsite, you will need barely equal safety measures, independent of the 1.5 GW nuclear reactor or 0.05GW SMR. Furthermore are cost savings for mass production extremely overestimated. Just have a look on airplanes. Did airplanes get extremely cheaper by mass production? The presented numbers for a single SMR, did not allow any labelling for "mass production", in addition, that very complex products do not bring a lot optimization in mass production.

[@defenestrated23]

​@@muten861 More important than economies of scale of mass production is stabilization of the price. We may not see deep discounts, but with this process, there are no surprises, unlike built-to-suit nuclear plants. Financiers are wary about funding these huge plants because of so many overruns. So I think just bringing the volatility down will be a huge boon to nuclear power.

[@howardmoon1234]

@@defenestrated23exactly. Plus, it is in the first place a complete misnomer to say nuclear power is expensive. £32bn for Hinckley C sound like a lot? Well its energy for 80 years! It’s just that it’s high capex, low opex, the opposite of a coal plant or a wind turbine field. It’s cheaper than both in the long run

[@l-dogtheman1685]

​@@howardmoon1234 nuclear power is not cheaper than wind power, though it is cheaper than coal power in most places. Not to mention vastly better for the environment and our health compared to fossil fuels, considering nuclear power has among the lowest number of deaths per unit of electricity. Wind power and nuclear power are not that different in that they have a higher capex, but a lower opex. In the case of wind power the operating costs are almost zero, once it is built it provides energy reliably for up to 30 years.

[@fteoOpty64]

Great concept and model. But achieving regulatory license to operate might be an issue in most countries. There also needs to be a cost-benefit analysis on long term ownership of such a power plant.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

It's hard to get regulatory agencies to adopt to a new model. One area where costs can be reduced is to dump this "it must all be steel" notion.

[@skeptibleiyam1093]

Wouldn't making identical copies in a factory help with the license issue? If the design is accepted, you can build as many as you want (in that country). One of the problems with the traditional plant is that they are all custom made. (so they are all new models)

[@bigwombat7286]

The first thing that should be done where one of these plants is going to be deployed is to launch a grass roots effort to pass regulation where all the homes and businesses can disconnect from the monopolistic power grid without paying a fee.

[@CoffeenSpice]

If there is a need, there's political will.

[@victorkreig6089]

cost benefit analysis of long term ownership? You don't know much about nuclear power do you lmao?

[@Morgan-iv4ye]

Didn’t cover the cost of the reactor though

[@deniskhafizov6827]

it would be nothing in comparison to the cost of insurance

[@SexyThyme]

Pshhh, that's nothing.. they're a dime a dozen.. build me a shed and I'll power the world, err, city, uhh, borough.

[@Big_Man__]

I'm certain that submarine designs were a huge influence in these projects. I'd be curious to know the allowable purity of the uranium (I'm assuming it's uranium) used in the reactors. Certainly not military grade. I wonder how they get 40 years out of them if they're so small. Very interesting tech and I am pleased to see SMRs continue to grow in popularity. It's a super clean and efficient energy source, so long as the fission material is contained and processed correctly of course.

[@michaeliverson2164]

The US Navy reactors are highly compact, and give more bang for the buck. The Ford Class Reactors, though design for a carrier, is very impressive!

[@erbenton07]

They dont, they get 6 years between refuelings and 40 years total before dismantling

[@Big_Man__]

@@erbenton07 Ah thanks for the clarification. I was astonished that 40 years was possible.

[@geoffreyrothwell2707]

Submarine nuclear fuel enrichment is classified. One can assume that it is somewhere between 20% and 100%, i.e., highly enriched uranium. Note that submarine/aircraft reactors on small and small reactors require higher enrichments to generate enough neutrons to achieve criticality. In the same way, most of the so-called advanced nuclear technologies need High Assay Low-Enriched Uranium with enrichments between 5% and 20%.

[@Big_Man__]

@@geoffreyrothwell2707 From what I gather the navy nuclear reactors are likely in the 90% enrichment percentile. Not sure what the limits on enrichment are for civilian reactors as the enrichment would start becoming weapons grade at a certain point.

[@CoffeenSpice]

The question is what is the price of electricity per unit?

[@TravelWithMeGadget]

Yep. What's the LCOE?

[@peterhalaska7368]

It would actually be quite low, mostly because how efficient nuclear reactors are. It would take a fairly small amount of uranium to power such a facility for a year, thus fuel costs are low. However there is cost of waste management. If nuclear waste is recycled (around 95% of High Level nuclear waste is able to be recycled), then cost could increase, but it would still be at a reasonable price. If nuclear waste is stored in deep geological depositories, then it would be even cheaper. Calculations on this vary depending on the reactor, it’s efficiency, the size of the plant, and the cost of uranium-235 in a certain region. For simplicity this calculation uses average values. The estimated cost of energy per MWh for Small Modular Reactors is $50-$80. While this costs more than renewables, it’s is slightly cheaper than coal, which costs $50-$100 per MWh.

[@neuralwarp]

Renewables are very expensive if you include the subsidies. Also wind is about 440 times more deadly than nuclear per GWh.

[@dxtxzbunchanumbers]

"The Energy Impact Center is an American research institute based in Washington, D.C. It primarily advocates for the expansion of nuclear power"

[@victorkreig6089]

Yes, that's a GOOD thing ONLY idiots hate nuclear

[@madshorn5826]

That explains why this video is almost funny in its vagueness and general technical incompetence.

[@99Racker]

Building a plant kind of like the reactor in a nuclear submarine. Using newer and safer design, use a factory line to build a reactor with a common use amount of power. If you need more power, just add more of the block type reactors. We need to move on this. Get the examples, into plans, examples tested, peer studied, inspected, tested and approved...them move on getting them into place. Thanks for the video.

[@jimfrazier8611]

Who runs them? A submarine has 30-40 guys working in the engineering spaces, all of whom double as armed security guards in port, and that is with nuclear-powered vessels only docking in secure ports with additional layers of base security. If you conservatively figure $100K per worker, which is on the low side with many nuclear-trained operators making half-again that much at fossil-fueled plants, thats at least $3M a year in salaries for a 20MW plant. And even that is assuming they're all willing to cross-train as security guards for no additional pay, not to mention having to do their jobs in body armor, while toting around an M4 carbine and half-a-dozen mags. That's the hidden cost of nuclear. The fuel is fairly cheap, but you also have huge labor costs, so they build them on a huge scale to make them affordable to operate.

[@Nill757]

@@jimfrazier8611 There are a dozen reasons why that US Navy sub needs that kind of security attention, none of which apply to this tiny Last Energy reactor. I can’t imagine you are unaware of them? Sub is running HEU, a direct weapons risk and more complicated to control; L-E is running std LEU. Va class sub has cost $3.5B, and cost aside vessel loss is major loss to national security; L-E is $100M and loss means factory goes out until a few diesels Gen-sets are started, so what. Tech involved in making a nuclear sub reactor run well and quiet underway is key to national security, so no eyes on allowed, whereas L-E design is same off the shelf dumb PWR used all over the world, only smaller. Navy has been protecting subs like that for generations; commercial nuclear never did until 911, and other countries like Netherlands think it’s silly.

[@DirtyBanditable]

@@jimfrazier8611 Until they implement an offline AI that runs the entire facility and responds to threats in real time, with limited or zero human error involved. The capitalist anchor of labor costs is about to get cut, but I am sure AI will come with a new set of challenges for the human race.

[@jenniferperry87]

Biden admin is already on it with funding in the Inflation Reduction Act set aside specifically for this

[@jenniferperry87]

@@DirtyBanditable You don't need an AI to run a nuclear plant... It's more like a thermostat than it is a computer. Control rods get inserted in and out to speed up or slow the reaction the same way a bimetallic strip in an old-school thermostat expands and contracts to maintain a specific temperature in a room. You aim for a given rate of reaction, and let it run. Most of the safety systems and control systems are redundant and automatic. Humans are there as a backup to the other multiple backups already in-place

[@foggy7577]

Id be interested to know how they deal with waste water and what their total output is?

[@chapter4travels]

Air cooled.

[@bugrasevinc9696]

you use water to cool it why would you empty it

[@bigmaxporter]

Generally coolant water is in a closed cycle, passing through a heat exchanger with non-contaminated water to extract the heat

[@Doflaminguard]

they evaporate bruh. thats why there's smoke going out.

[@neuralwarp]

The most modern designs use liquid CO₂ as the coolant, but rather than waste the heat you can use it directly in factories or homes.

[@Ricks_Shorts]

£32 billion is still £3 billion less than the UKs Test & Trace system, which was essentially a phone app and a couple of spreadsheets.

[@hallambaker]

Not true! Test and Trace was a phone app, a couple of spreadsheets and a massive amount of Tory graft giving huge gobs of public cash to BoJo's chummiest pals. Don't expect BoJo's 'new nuclear' to be any different. All the oinkers have their snouts in the trough.

[@Slash1066]

I was thinking the same thing! Although most of that money went into the pockets of the stooge they gave the contract to

[@hallambaker]

@@Slash1066 When you are having £35 billion stuffed into your pocket, you are no longer a stooge, you have graduated to being a crony.

[@user-qv6ud2hx6f]

Having no expertise in this area I still note that the heat power to electricity ration in Ritm - Russian ship reactors is around 2:1. For SMR, I understand, it is 3:1, so small reactors are less effective. Will they will be compatible if uranium become more expensive ?

[@Nill757]

True smaller does typically mean less efficient than large. In the case of nuclear, a higher operating cost than optimal doesn’t matter as it does w expensive fuel sources like gas fuel, as the fuel cost of nuclear is a tiny fraction, maybe 0.2cents per kWh out of 4 cents / kWh total. Price of nuclear fuel could double triple, doesn’t matter. The cost of nuclear is all about it ge up front capex build cost . If Last Energy can build fast and factory made cheap as they say, it’s an obvious win and nothing else comes close. The overwhelming advantage of nuclear was clear from the beginning … unless something could extend it’s build times, over regulate it or even ban it. Look at the once large and profitable French fleet oil oil fired electric power plants. They didn’t exist alongside new nuclear as wind does with gas and coal. Nuclear obliterated the entire French oil power fleet in a dozen years. Imagine what *any* other power provider thinks of allowing cheap nuclear into their market.

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka U in your backyard has half-life a billion years. What’s the source of this 100,000 years?

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka I don’t think so. I think instead they claim that is the design of the repository, designed to be undisturbed for so many years. Because somebody told them that’s what they wanted to feel good about the issue.

[@user-dg9pu4pe9d]

If a country has many small reactors, what happens if there is a war or major natural disaster? One lesson to be learned from Ukraine is war and nuclear power plants are a somewhat unnerving combination. Fukushima certainly made clear the dangers of natural disasters and nuclear power plants.

[@anydaynow01]

Which Fukushima? Daiichi suffered from a lack of competent leadership in the end. Daini got through the earthquake and tsunami damaged but due to the better leadership were able to avoid Daiichi's fate. Since then the entire world wide nuclear power industry has modernized it's natural disaster response structure and made extremely expensive modifications to their plants to deal with a loss of all on sight power during a natural disaster scenario, including the blackout diesels (on the highest ground) many western plants have that the Fukushima plants didn't. That is the best part of SMRs, they are designed from the ground up to cool themselves safely without power hungry subsystems and retrofits.

[@micke3035]

Both your examples comes back to humans in two ways. First, if you have a leader that thinks it's a good idea to fire explosives towards a nuclear power plant or hold it hostage and threatening to blow it up if you don't get what you want, and that person clearly has neither love or respect for the own population as a catastrophic event at such a power plant would hurt or kill parts of the own population. Yes that scenario is really worrying and problematic, though it's less worrying than someone threaten to start an all out nuclear war... How to deal with that scenario? Probably the only way is to enlighten citizens so they can change the way their country is governed, easier said than done though. Second, you could simply choose to not build a nuclear power plant where it's operation and safety could be compromised in the event of a tsunami. I Think(someone correct me if I'm wrong) the biggest incidents in nuclear history comes down to poor judgment from humans, one way or another. If something would break and cause an incident it's down to lacking inspection and maintenance, humans again. Sadly there's too much unwarranted fear of nuclear power in the world because other than hydropower it's the cleanest and most environmental friendly power source available, not to mention reliable.

[@hazalnut8647]

The big issue I have with this is we have crazy people in the US shooting up transformers and electrical infrastructure. So, I would be worried about a nut case attacking a small nuclear plant.

[@fernbedek6302]

That seems a bit like worrying about having cities after 9/11. Massively overstating the risk, and the scale of security would be wildly different. The main solution I saw for the transformers shoot up was, for instance, just building some walls so they can’t see what to shoot.

[@edl617]

Bury the lines

[@syproductions456]

Seems too easy for bad people to get hold of nuclear material and make dirty nuclear bombs, if these things are everywhere.

[@acorgiwithacrown467]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s Yes but the chances of those reactors even being taken offline are negligible, especially given that reactors have their own dedicated armed security. I can't find any articles mentioning what you described, only articles stating a few reactors were shutdown for maintenance a year ago. You're posting alot of similar anti-nuclear comments and given your name is Russian leads me to believe you're just another Russian bot.

[@Croz89]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s Most modern reactor designs will shut themselves down to a stable state if there is a loss of power to the cooling system. As for renewables, you only need to attack the connection to the HV network to take the whole array off the grid.

[@LyriixLKE]

Is that The B1M voice!? I didn't realize you had two channels... I Love Your stuff!

[@theblurredcrusade.2557]

Yeah it's Fred but with a Sub Channel.

[@artel6225]

Nimby's & bureaucracy will get in the way of a great idea.

[@Game_Hero]

and common sense too, I'll stick with large well controlled, well secured plants, thank you.

[@TheNitorx2525]

A group in Norway has actually been working on this, but have not made any progress because of the goverment and the peoples doubt. Even tho Norways power is 99% green, it is not a regulated power, so nuclear energy is actually something Norway needs.

[@Nill757]

Norways electric grid power is 98% green. Guarantee much local factory power and heat is not.

[@akhil-menon]

You didn’t touch upon the radioactive waste that this plant would generate and what the disposal strategy would be? Were you not allowed to talk about that under the terms of your sponsorship deal? Would appreciate more transparency on that(I know you’re going to ignore this comment). Great idea though! We definitely need this scaled up but knowing all the facts is key for getting public approval

[@Game_Hero]

It is an 8 minute ad talking about the people that paid them to say good things, there is no view or image outside those providing by the company. A misleading scam of a video pretending to not be in a conflict of interest.

[@samuelshields7565]

Spent fuel can actually be recycled. Also more modern nuclear power plants have filtration systems that prevent anything from leaking.

[@16jocko]

‘Run out of town by an angry mob” should happen more often. Several political and big business entities come to mind.

[@aatkarelse8218]

So you have a PWR, don't you want a containment building for that? For when/if you spring a leak in this high pressure, high temperature, high neutron flux environment?

[@bigwombat7286]

They'll be long gone with the money when this happens. This a beer run for $$$.

[@aatkarelse8218]

@@bigwombat7286 Yeah i'm afraid so, our politicians that all fancy them self's mangers are all susceptible to this kind of marketing wank. Hope there is some institution in your country that will tell them there are rules to abide by, unless it has been cut back to bail out some scammer banks. Now don't get me wrong nuclear proponent all the way here, but this marketing BS can F right off.

[@patrickhenry4874]

That's what the 13 years of lawsuits and beurocracy are for

[@Nill757]

It’s buried, something that is manageable w a small reactor. That’s the containment. If there’s a coolant leak, which in PWR doubles as moderator, reactor stops immediately. People in the building could get hurt, like people in building with coal boiler could get hurt w a steam leak boiler explosion. But further away? Not really. X-ray worth maybe. And later melt downs not an issue w small reactors. There little bit of decay heat bleeds away.

[@ROBLOXGamingDavid]

@@Nill757 that would have been something, they should bury it, and they wouldn't need a containment building for it.... Oh wait.... groundwater contamination? Ok no. I'm afraid not. But i wish they should do that.

[@grahamariss2111]

The Navy tried this, it was why the USS Enterprise had 8 reactors, the problem was this delivered nearly 4 time the fixed operating costs of the twin reactors in the USS Nimitz.

[@GreyDeathVaccine]

Didn't know that. So it seems that going bigger is better in nuclear industry.

[@grahamariss2111]

@@GreyDeathVaccine That is why they have done this, as to try and improve reactor efficiency as fixed costs have increased through ever tighter controls, reactors have got both bigger and more powerful. The idea of having lots of 30 x 40MW reactors with all the needed monitoring and safety inspections etc etc and this being cheaper than say one 1200 MW EPR reactor, seems unlikely to me. I suspect this project will like so many will only ever exist as a computer simulation.

[@Nill757]

@@grahamariss2111Navy runs on highly enriched fuel which commercial Cant and won’t use. HEU is a weapons risk; that’s why each naval reactor needs its own army.

[@PS1212]

They're far from the only ones doing this but seems like a decent effort. That being said; a problem with 1 of these units is a problem with all of them, potentially disastrous while also universally repairable.

[@PS1212]

I also dont appreciate a bunch more unproven reactors covering populated areas. Should be obvious why thats a bad thing.

[@vampiresRsolame]

Only some old and dumb designs are even capable of a full on reactor meltdown. I'd hope these are a design with the moderator built into the fuel which means they're safe to fully rip the control rods out of without any issue. The issue of lots of little bits of nuclear waste sitting around would be the biggest I'd see with this concept from both a proliferation and toxicity perspective, but it could be solved with the right logistics infrastructure.

[@PS1212]

@@vampiresRsolame in theory great, but humans make too many mistakes, this many of these places; the mistakes will happen disastrously

[@MgMreast]

What would be the cost per Kw?cost of initial investment? maintainance? etc?

[@Music5362]

Yeah, all the important information is missing.

[@randomnobody8770]

The LCOE is estimated to be between $65 and $150 per MW; competitive with the LCOE of solar/wind + backup.

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

If all the components are made off the shelf then the price is what the free market can produce it for. By definition, you can't ask anyone what the market will do it for because the market is huge and consists of many players each with their own solution to the production of each component. All you can say about it, is the system, through successive approximation will arrive at the optimum value for money.

[@ogribiker8535]

​@@randomnobody8770 If you actually think that nuclear power can ever be comparable to wind/solar then there is no hope for you!

[@randomnobody8770]

@@ogribiker8535 First: google the LCOE estimates for SMR's. Take a nanosecond to consider that people are betting hundreds of millions on these businesses. This is as simple as I can make it. Best of luck.

[@Umski]

Hm, nice idea but who runs the power plant and then pays for the decommissioning when the company using it disappears or it’s no longer needed?

[@R.-.]

Great! So which country sells most of the enriched Uranium fuel for these fission reactors? Is it the same "unfriendly" country from which you just decided NOT to buy oil and gas?

[@jimrichards3916]

Brilliant. Glad somebody is moving forward with this idea!

[@clarkkent9080]

Yep they have moved forward with the power point presentation, now all they need is taxpayer welfare

[@jimfrazier8611]

The US Navy has been running standardized-design small pressurized water reactors for decades, and they are anything but economical. If they were, destroyers and cruisers would be nuclear-powered as well, not just submarines that have to stay submerged for months and carriers that need space for aircraft, weapons, and jet fuel. They Navy did try nuclear cruisers and even one destroyer, but they could never get enough trained crews to keep them all operating safely, so between the manning and the huge upkeep issues all those ships had very short operational histories. This is because they only accomplished their exemplary safety record by treating their crews like slave labor, to the point where people routinely turn down $100,000 bonuses for a two-year reenlistment, and the training costs for replacement crews are prohibitive for anything less well-funded than the military. I don't know where Last Energy thinks they're going to get all those trained operators, because while nuclear is safer than most people give it credit for, it's not idiot-proof by a long shot. The existing utility-scale plants suck up operators as fast as the Navy and colleges can pump them out, and even then, a lot of the Navy guys run far and fast from the anal-retentive safety-nazi culture of nuclear power. I work at a gas-turbine combined-cycle plant, and about half of us are former Navy "nuclear refugees", who have no desire whatsoever to subject ourselves to that kind of misery again.

[@bigwombat7286]

Excellent point!

[@madshorn5826]

Add to that the insanity of dotting the landscape with reactors smaller than a large wind turbine. Either you have to spend exorbitant resources on watching every single one or you have just created the perfect target for the people who are fond of shooting up schools today, but who tomorrow want something with a little extra misery. Wind and solar are way cheaper - even with energy storages to make them reliable 24/7

[@Nill757]

“Anything but economical” The Naval reactors are fueled with highly enriched uranium which allow them to run for years, maybe life of the ship without refueling. That fuel is wildly expensive and the security requirements for handling it are extreme. Then a naval reactor has to fit in the hull, shielding for the crew has to fit, no concrete all steel and so on. Yes it’s expensive. None of that applies to the Last Energy PWR using LEU and buried under ground for shielding.

[@Nill757]

“Safety Nazi” Yes that’s self imposed by an industry trying to get pay days and has to end. Gas plants and pipelines have killed many in the US in fires n explosions over the years, has good rules but no safety Nazis. Nuclear commercial power for 70 years? Zero fatalities.

[@Nill757]

@@madshorn5826 “way cheaper even with” No they aren’t. There is no real “storage”, only toys by comparison to what’s needed. There’s no utility scale battery facility that can back up a single middling 500 MW power plant or wind farm for a full day, not anywhere in the world. So of course the “storage” is no storage at all but some gas plant. A new large gas plant plus pipeline plus some enormous wind farm is far more expensive than most any existing nuclear power plant in the US. New nuclear is indeed another issue. New nuclear in Asia is cheap. Early new nuclear in the U.S. built late 60s was cheap, built 3-5 years under $1000/kw todays $, ran 50 years great safety record. If modern new US nuclear is expensive, see the NRC and politics, not the tech.

[@Leon_Schuit]

A really awesome concept, I hope it works out for them and their customers. I can't help but wonder what'll happen if these guys go bankrupt though, who will service the reactors then?

[@whatshappenedhere1784]

They use off the shelf parts, in other words the most commonly used parts and the ones that the majority of technicians know how to service

[@Leon_Schuit]

@@whatshappenedhere1784 The parts might be off the shelf, but it's still a nuclear reactor. Not just anyone has the right certification to work with highly radioactive components, and the entire core will become radioactive after being irradiated by the fuel. If people don't have the right training to work on them, they should never be allowed to do so, regardless of whether they have the mechanical knowledge to disassemble it.

[@KepleroGT]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s How do you generate power at night? Or when it's cloudy? You can't rely on solar every time. Building giant batteries wastes lithium that could be put towards the electric cars the governments desire so much.

[@whatshappenedhere1784]

@@Leon_Schuit The point is that any nuclear technician would be familiar with the most common parts you numpty

[@stoney202]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s hmmm those figures don't seem accurate to me, especially when you consider more industries electrifying. Not to mention nobody expects Nuclear to ever take 100% of energy production. Nuclear acts as a base supporting other renewable technologies like wind. It's place is to replace the oil, coal, gas plants that need to be turned on when low solar or wind output is expected and demand is needed on a medium (2-4 hours) basis. Solar and Wind aren't the solution and are too unreliable, they are however part of the solution. Other technologies like Nuclear (fission) are absolutely needed to support them.

[@grasonicus]

Hinkley C is a European Pressurised Reactor, EPR. Constructing them is notoriously difficult. There are only two functional so far, both in China. They were finished late and started producing in 2018 and 2019. So, EPR is not the way to go until the problems have been sorted out. The difficulty is with a certain kind of nuclear reactor, not nuclear reactors in general. The video should have made that clear.

[@hallambaker]

At $100m for a 20MW unit (UK Telegraph), these are comically uneconomic. Offshore wind, is running at $10m for the same nameplate capacity. Operating expenses will be higher for nuclear as well. This is a paid promotion and the derisive tone discussing alternatives in the intro is really off. Nuclear and renewables both have the issue of not being dispatchable sources, storage is needed to match supply to demand which is why conventional nuclear is only used for base load.

[@waynr]

I'm pro nuclear, but this is a puff piece with no critical analysis or questioning around waste management, safety, or cost. Just an advertisement for the company with hand-wavy "this will work, trust me" explanations for the important questions.

[@Game_Hero]

An 8 minute ad with no conflict of interest at all...

[@mattmccoy2514]

Kind of glossed over the part where you have to deal with an old reactor every 6 years…what’s the plan?

[@rjk471]

Also didn't give a convincing answer to the safety question!!!

[@Game_Hero]

To both of you, they're their sponsor, it's an 8 minutes ad not labelled as such in a total conflict of interest.

[@GazMoby]

Very interesting and informative and usual 👍

[@Game_Hero]

what's informative about an 8 minute ad about their sponsor?

[@krazYFaic]

I'm curious how they'd address the fuel supply chain. If they're delivering new reactor modules every six years, they'd have to pick up the old one and the waste generated. Add to that the proper disposal of that waste and that's going to be expensive both financially and environmentally.

[@bhoutdoors507]

Compare it to the environmental/ financial costs of mining for coal or solar and wind materials

[@yt.damian]

the footprint of the waste material is negligible compared to everything else except hydro. it lasts a long time but there is not a lot of it.

[@tomj819]

Yep, nuclear power trades a small volume of high hazard, solid, localised waste for a massive volume of low hazard, systemic, uncaptured waste. If the global community is serious about reducing carbon emissions nuclear is really the only viable option ready to go right now. Scaremongering over nuclear disasters is extremely myopic. The estimated total death toll from Chernobyl is 6,000 people. Thousands of coal miners die every year, and that's before you get started on gas, oil or the health impacts of air pollution.

[@1968Christiaan]

@@yt.damian The waste footprint is HUGE.... after German unification (1991) several old comunist plants were turned off immediately. The one in Greifswald (North East Germany) has been cleaned up and taken down for the last 32 years.... the PR department of the plant says the completion date is another 30- 70 years.

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

If they were going to take away the old one to process it and replace it with a new one then I'd be pretty OK with that model. But according to another video about this I just watched they are just going to leave the old one where it is and install a new one next to it. So you might have 5 old reactor cores on the site after 30 years. I'm concerned about what happens if the company shuts down and just leaves them there permanently. Having a handful of nuclear plant sites with used fuel ponds etc is one thing. But having hundreds or thousands of disused reactors dotted around the country long term is a much more concerning situation.

[@filipszyga7394]

So plenty of decentralized nuclear power stations mean a huge problem with radioactive fuel. Distribution, protection and storage much more complex then ever before.

[@traybern]

Just build them RIGHT NEXT to EXISTING nuclear power plants.

[@jjamespacbell]

Trying to get a Wind/Solar/Battery facility takes longer than 3 months to get permitted and they have far less than nuclear of a "NOT IN MY BACKYARD" attitude to fight. Keeping current nuclear facilities active make a lot of sense but the total cost of energy favors renewables and has none of the decades of how to manage radioactive waste, the Ukraine shows how once stable facilities can be put at risk in the future.

[@levismith7444]

Exactly, no one wants to live next to a nuclear plant but most people will put solar panels on their roof it means saving on your energy bill

[@kerbalairforce8802]

"Renewables" aren't renewable. Nuclear power is safer, greener, and in the long run cheaper than solar and wind. It also doesn't have to be backed up by natural gas like solar and wind do.

[@maximum94]

I have always been fascinated with nuclear power and im so glad a new company is striving to make it more accessible and safer.

[@nathancochran4694]

@Utoobe Izkaka Burn it in a fast spectrum reactor as fuel.

[@nathancochran4694]

@Utoobe Izkaka France reprocesses its fuel. Its called mixed oxide fuel. It gets obnoxious when people try to pass off problems created solely by people as problems inherent to the energy source.

[@maximum94]

@Utoobe Izkaka still better than burning fossil fuels. At least we do have an option to store it. Unlike the USSR back in the day

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka Every plant animal tree etc is radioactive w carbon 14. Spent fuel never hurt anyone anywhere ever. But coal oil gas does, every damn day

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka “not commercially available” Russians have two commercial units running right now. Beloyarsk 3 and 4. 600 MW and 800 MW.

[@michaeltaylor4271]

Paper mills basically do this, most of them have large industrial boilers, and all kinds of diffrent boilers you can even burn a by product of the paper process in a recovery boiler if you wanted, but they make enough power for the whole plant usually, not all of them do and not all cover the whole electrical is usage but they all have a boilers..!and it depends on how big it is how big the generators are and so on, but yea they make their own power probably for this same reason.

[@maikocarlo]

So they’re big batteries? What about their disassembly? What if they become obsolete? What would be the process in handling that?

[@EinChris75]

Throw it away, bury it somewhere deep, let it rot in place, send it to Russia for recycling, use it in some fantasy waste burning reactor, send it to the sun with rockets. But do not come up with a real concept. /s (Pick one: These are the typical positions of nuclear fan boys.)

[@bigwombat7286]

Move to another planet. FTL should be online any day now.

[@vaughanellis7866]

This is another variation of the small modular reactor concept, the only thing that needs to be 'plug-in' is the reactor itself everything else can be a permanent emplacement as for the worries about a cyber attack all of the computers would be 'air-gapped' with no connection to the internet at all.

[@AyzekUorren]

Not only that, but each problem will be able to improve all reactors at the same time because the process will be standardized.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Physical security regarding the theft of nuclear materials is a major hurdle. You can make a small reactor and you can lower the risk of accidents - but you can't scale the security down. Even a modest amount of reactor fuel in the wrong hands represents a city-sized threat.

[@anydaynow01]

The security isn't an issue since there aren't nearly as many vulnerable systems, and even if the systems are harmed the release would be restricted to a small area within the sight. A large plant has a perimeter which requires a very large armed security force while these won't. You just can't pick up a canister of contaminated material, it just doesn't exist the way it does in the movies, like they are giant bunkers of concrete and steel, good luck running off with or trying to bomb one of those. In fact the cases of public contamination and loss of radioactive material don't come from fission plants, they come from hospitals and companies which do nuclear medicine. Talking to the radiation control contractors their worst stories are clean ups of hospital ventilation systems following an accidental release. But those stories aren't sensational enough to make the news like "Fire at Nuclear Plant!" which was a waste basket in the forward office outside of the protected area which set off an alarm and brought the local fire brigade out.

[@kevincrosby1760]

@@anydaynow01 Fire in the office wastebasket. Hmmm... Columbia Generating Plant/WPPSS #2? I believe that there was a 2nd similar issue involving a microwave and a bag of popcorn.

[@Martinko_Pcik]

Where does the waste go ? Off site? Who is maintening and refueling the plant? Volunteers ?

[@chi-jenyang9752]

This company looks almost as good as Theranos.

[@Nill757]

One drop blood test machines were in fact nonsense, w years of prior work saying it had intractable problems. This power project is the most basic light water reactor design been around for 50 years; it’s just very very small. Probably still won’t get though the regulatory garbage though that does not make it a fraud. Btw, the owner already founded a real, not fake, aero company which he sold for a large sum.

[@chi-jenyang9752]

@@Nill757 All light water reactors were rather small 50 years ago. The reason they got bigger and bigger is for a very good reason: economy of scale. Small reactors are uncompetitive in costs. If you want to learn more about the history of nuclear power. Read my book: Belief-based Energy Technology Development in the United States: A Comparative Study of Nuclear Power and Synthetic Fuel Policies, Cambria Press.

[@chi-jenyang9752]

@@Nill757 Recently another company found a way to avoid the regulatory garbage, you can look at their example. It is called the Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate

[@acaptaincole8456]

Sounds interesting however the big question would be whether it could hold up to UK safety regulations and standards, we've got some of the strict regulations on the face of the globe when it comes to anything nuclear, if you build in a fashion where it meets UK safety standards and you could deploy anywhere in the world, if it doesn't then you're playing the game of which countries would accept the technology due to safety and which ones wouldn't.

[@johnhopkins6260]

Those countries that will not come up with their own viable solutions, will be left behind.

[@victorkreig6089]

UK safety regulations are a joke and can change on a dime Your country is a dystopian nightmare for any and all types of innovation to the point where going back to a strict monarchy would legitimately be a better alternative which is as anyone could imagine *insane*

[@NiceNoice]

Ofcourse they will cause it can be taxed

[@victorkreig6089]

@@NiceNoice oh yeah because there are SO many nuclear plants in the UK lmao 🤡

[@NiceNoice]

@@victorkreig6089 these are modular nuclear plants designed for single factory use with a price tag of 100 milliion base price thats 22+ mill in tax for the state. Now if 100 factory’s buy 1 module or multiple do some math & who said anything about the current ones. Bozo.

[@portcybertryx222]

Been waiting for this….finally

[@clarkkent9080]

You will be waiting a long time as these startups just want taxpayer welfare

[@CausticLemons7]

I hope the momentum of all the recent efforts on nuclear energy help us figure out long term solutions to our nuclear questions.

[@defenstrator4660]

I can definitely see the potential for small nuclear reactors, They have after all been powering ships for decades. But those reactors are typically on vessels were everyone has security clearances and only certain people are allowed access. I'd want a pretty big block of reinforced concrete and steel with some substantial security around one of these and I'm not sure if that's an expense the typical factory wants to invest in.

[@anydaynow01]

That's one of the great things about these, they won't require the security force of a mega fission plant since they are much simpler and are designed so the amount of decay heat can be rejected with natural cooling in a blackout condition, so it's only the containment itself that really needs protection. If something does go wrong somehow the release is limited to the footprint of the plant because of the way they are built, in comparison to the plants running now designed over half a century ago.

[@bigwombat7286]

@@anydaynow01 They also make great targets for terrorists. Can you imagine a dirty bomb made by intercepting the materials to or from this plant? Let's face it. Nuclear power is the most expensive on the planet and always will be.

[@victorkreig6089]

@@bigwombat7286 Right because all of those petroleum and natural gas plants that have been attacked by terrorists for 60 years sure have made us all scared Take a hike

[@stivi739]

Can't wait for home units

[@caesarsalad1170]

@@bigwombat7286 Also the best

[@trogstar5691]

This idea is about as good as playing with Methylmercury. Honestly, let's just let plainly difficult make a video now explaining the potential problems.. Reactor output as the fuel degrades will drop, necessitating increase in reactor activity to generate the same electrical output and there is no remote operation... so, your expecting plant operators to moderate the reaction... right 😂 When a reactor module needs to be changed, what exactly is the expected reactor down time during the procedure? How are you planning on dealing with said "spent" module?

[@djayjp]

Or you could just build wind and solar on the roof of the factory that creates green hydrogen or ammonia from excess energy.

[@kevincrosby1760]

Great until night shift reports for work on a dark windless night.

[@djayjp]

@@kevincrosby1760 You missed the second half of what I wrote.

[@Jandodev]

I don't have an energy problem yet but this is really cool

[@doctorgonzo207]

Unanswered questions about security. Who controls the nuclear fuel? And who guards it. The risk (dirty bombs, sabotage etc) is EXPONENTIAL if every honk can install a nuclear power plant and just assume that all will be well.

[@andrewemerson1613]

the difference between weapon's grade material and fuel grade material is so vast that there is a reason only like nine whole countries have done it, and why nuclear material is an openly traded resource. and one of these things being taken offline would basically render it as it's own storage tank. in almost any case the factory the reactor powers poses a much greater hazard to people in the area than the reactor

[@acorgiwithacrown467]

Who do you think? Armed guards and the government. You really think any government is going to allow nuclear power plants to be built without adequate security in mind?

[@shadowlordalpha]

Interesting, I wonder if they will have seperate reactor cores for different needs. Such as a Thorium core or others as there are different types

[@13minutestomidnight]

This is a very intelligent way to standardise nuclear power, reduce costs, and make it modular and quick to build. I've seen a lot of criticism of modular reactors saying there won't be enough market for them, or they'll all require specialised parts that will be difficult to standardise, but this shows that's not the case. If the cost/benefit analysis works out, a lot of companies would prefer paying for a small nuclear plant that can be quickly built now rather than grappling with intermittent and expensive electricity from the grid. This might very well end up being cheaper than paying for a solar or wind farm plus the Li-ion batteries that would need to be regularly replaced (and the land to put it on) too. Furthermore, a small plant means that the risk from meltdown is exponentially reduced, and any risk from radiation is too. Even having multiple of these modules in close proximity would make them safer than a big plant because each core is separated from the others, reducing the risk of a critical mass meltdown spreading from one module to other fuel. This means you can safely place it in a relatively small space. If you needed a huge number of these, then building a single large utility-scale nuclear plant might be cheaper, but individual companies are unlikely to need all that, and it's much more useful to add these individual modules as you need them.

[@robotnikkkk001]

=NOPE,THAT'S A WAY TO *_SCAM_* PEOPLE AS NO WAY THIS IS ACTUAL NUCLEAR REACTOR BUT *RITEG* =HOW DID I NOTICE THAT??....DO Y KNOW HOW *MUCH* COOLING ACTUAL NUCLEAR REACTOR DOES NEED??? *A LOT!!* ,SO MARINE VESSELS HAVE *OCEAN* ,BUT WHERES A HUGE COOLING TOWER??? ...........ALSO,TO MENTION.......THAT NUCLEAR REACTORS EVEN SMALL ONES PRODUCE SO MUCH HEAT SO ACTUALLY THEY'RE BEEN USED IN SOME KIND OF CENTRALIZED HEATING.......SO THERE ALSO SOME PIPING IS NEEDED ..............ALSO ABOUT WHERE'S ACTUAL COOLING PIPING INVOLVED AT 1ST PLACE??????THERE'S NO ANY!!!!REACTORS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT,THEY JUST *MELT* !!!! =HOW'S REACTOR ON SUBMARINE DOES WORK????.............2 CIRCUITS OF........1ST IS.....OVERHEATED WATER OR SO CALLED *NaK* AND SECOND IS ABOUT GENERATING.............AND THIS ONE......IS BEING COOLED BY OUTSIDE WATER =ALSO................ *_NUCLEAR REACTORS ON SHIPS AND SUBMARINES HAVE TO BE RELOADED ONCE IN 20+-YEARS,NOT 5 YEARS!!!_*

[@hg2.]

Fantastic!

[@clarkkent9080]

Living a dream....really just a dream

[@BenzinioB]

I'm all in for the nuclear. And all in for small modular reactors... What bothers me is how it will be controlled! Running Nuc is not like your average business and we dont really have a safety standards to deal with numerous modular reactors all around.

[@francowabongo]

If you have one of these at your factory, does it mean that you need to employ nuclear physicists to manage and operate it? Wouldn't that be super expensive?... Also, that would make it pretty hard to scale cos there aren't that many nuclear physicists knocking about

[@Nill757]

“employ nuclear physics” No. Even in big plants the operators are not nuclear engineers. There is a nuclear engineer or two overseeing a big plant, just as there is a power mechanical engineer in charge of a few gas/coal plants. I imagine an engineer would oversee a dozen of these tiny reactors. The thing is going to run non stop six years, constant level. Not much to do until switch out.

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka “all those”? Certainly some nuclear engineers are needed for the design. Why do you suppose you need a bunch of nuclear engineers, or any, to full time operate the thing? It’s 60 times smaller than a big reactor. Sealed, never opened, never refueled. Install subterranean. Why do you think you need to store perfectly for 100,000 years? The uranium in rocks in your backyard has half life a billion years. In 200 years, spent fuel is not inert, but it is safe enough to put in a room with me. What about a mountain of coal ash? That never goes away.

[@Nill757]

@Utoobe Izkaka “they are lying” I’m afraid you’ve made clear in your posts about “mean girls” and the like that lying is what your doing. You simply don’t feel good about nuclear, sounds bad somehow, but instead of saying that, you make up BS. I ask why are loads of nuclear engineers needed as you claim? You answer “maintained” or “working properly” as if aero engineers need to be there to fly planes. Give me a break. Indulge your fear of spiders or heights or nuclear or whatever somewhere else. “Renewables don’t generated coal ash??? Coal dies. “ Is that right? Are you pretending you don’t know that solar wind uses gas coal alongside, watt for watt? Are you unaware that multiple coal plants have restarted in Germany, despite spending 500 billion EUR on wind solar, and that coal is once again Germanys largest source of power, and Germany burns by far the most coal in Europe, Poland 2nd? Or maybe you have another story that’s says never-mind those coal ash mountains, they don’t count as pollution because magic storage real soon now.

[@garyharris8082]

um this is more like a marketing video than an explanation on the system. Its a great idea but I have a few questions.... Where are the regulatory approvals? Where are the skilled operators of the plants coming from? What are the ongoing maintenance requirements and there associated costs? to name a few. Moreover, yes you can standardise the build of the plants in the build factory but not all potential build sites are equal, stating 3 months for every site is way off imo. There are a bunch of other factors to consider too but I'm not going to go into that in a marketing video.

[@felipaorfr]

No way you could deploy a nuclear plant in any civilised country without the big, expensive and time-consuming to build Containment Building.

[@kerbalairforce8802]

Nuclear regulations are mostly written for the fossil fuel guys to stay competitive. You are exposed to way more radiation at a coal plant than you are at a nuclear power plant.

[@MDP1702]

Generally such modular small scale nuclear plants have been touted as cheaper and more flexible. However studies generally find that the costs are similar or higher, mostly due to the savings of standardisation/mass production being outweighed by the benefits of scale in conventional plants. As for more flexible, they'll need to jump through all the necessary legal/permission hoops that regular nuclearpowerplants do, so that also will add up for high amount of projects. I am also curious if it actually will pass safety regulation, like will it safely withstand a plane crash or natural disaster? Where I live a wind turbine can be built in 3 months, but the entire (regulatory) process takes at least 3 years. For these kind of plants, I'd say it could take at least 2-3 times as long, if not more. And in many cases will likely be denied without some very expensive insurances. What happens with the spend fissile materials? Who is going to arrange its processing, transportation, ... all expensive and very high security processes. You could say the company, but what if it goes under, who then? That is the advantage of workign with big players here, chance of them going under without large collateral is overall much smaller (especially with regular edits of their financial feasibility, budgets set aside for end of life costs, ...) So while it isn't interesting, we'll have to see how much impact it actually will have, the idea could turn out to be a flop.

[@mtscott]

Economies of scale are generally the winner. However, people don’t take into the account the construction risks/costs. That might eventually swamp the large plant benefit.

[@MDP1702]

@@mtscott Construction risks/costs will likely also plague the smaller ones, just lesser per project, but in the end combining all those smaller cost overruns might not be much better. We don't know at this moment since it hasn't yet been done on smaller quantitative scale. Especially since many cost overruns also have to do with cost overruns, site specific demands, ...

[@zibbitybibbitybop]

@@MDP1702 The entire point of these guys's design is that because it's fully standardized and requires basically no specialty labor or material to construct on-site, it shouldn't be vulnerable to major cost overruns like the huge boutique plants. Obviously time will tell if that plays out that way or not, but it seems to me like they've deliberately accounted for that in advance.

[@MDP1702]

@@zibbitybibbitybop That is nothing new from other such proposals, the entire stick of small reactors is standardisation and that it lowers cost. However researches also found the increase of cost due to a reduced scale increases the cost such that the advantage is little, non-existent or even a disadvantage. I think a lot of people underestimate the costs of the bureaucratic and regulatory requirements, which will increase with multiple smaller sites. But yes, we'll see what happens in the future. SMR's still can fullfill certain needs regardless, even if it might prove less interesting for gridsize plants.

[@MDP1702]

@Utoobe Izkaka There is a depository that can safely do this that comes online around this time in Finland (I think), it is currently the only one of its kind. But more should follow and currently the amount of nuclear waste isn't a problem, maybe if we'd use full nuclear for all our power/energy needs, but we aren't anywhere close to that yet.

[@freethinker4991]

Solar with battery back up has become so cheep that Nuclear has to reduce it cost by at least 75% to compete cost below. The cost estimates for technologies (all figures in US dollars). • Tracking PV $26-67 per MWh • Fixed-axis PV $29-80 per MWh • Onshore wind $32-83 per MWh • Combined cycle gas turbine power plant $66-96 per MWh (no CO2 capture) • Onshore wind plus storage $50-124 per MWh • Fixed-axis PV plus storage $58-178 per MWh • Utility-scale battery (four-hour storage duration) $145-167 per MWh (@2020 prices) • Open cycle gas turbine power plant $146-309 per MWh (No CO2 capture) • Black or brown coal-fired power $90-140 per MWh (No CO2 capture) • Nuclear energy costs $112-189 per MWh • • Capturing CO2 between $94 and $232 per ton • Coal power stations produces 7.812 ton of CO2 per MWh • Black or brown coal-fired power with CO2 capture $734-1812 per MWh

[@Merennulli]

Your numbers don't show solar + battery beating out nuclear. Eventually they are expected to, but we have to get to that eventually first. We can't just sit on our hands until someone figures it out.

[@mikeboate208]

nuclear energy numbers are not accurate for current ( mini- nuke) projects ,i would assume .

[@westleygomez5071]

This doesn't even include the amount subsidies for each power source. Part of the reason why solar is so cheap is that is subsidized by the government in the same way that our products are made to either artificially inflate or deflate a price.

[@MDP1702]

@@westleygomez5071 Actually, these are non-subsidized numbers. Btw, nuclear, coal and gas plants also get quite a lot of (indirect) subsidies.

[@anydaynow01]

@@Merennulli You nailed it! Solar/Wind + battery + overbuilding for inclement weather/seasonal effects/lot sized panel & blade changes/climate change + pitiful capacity factor compared to nearly always on fission power.

[@juliansebastian]

Sounds good but I‘m always a bit skeptical of sponsored videos where the only interview is with a salesperson of some sort

[@yutubl]

Very impressing

[@jardy3597]

This would be huge if it can also supply thermal power on demand.

[@deniskhafizov6827]

This termal power (whatever the heat carrier is) will always bear risk to be contaminated, so please no.

[@jardy3597]

@Denis Khafizov not really? You have Heat exchangers between reactor water and turbine water.

[@acorgiwithacrown467]

@@deniskhafizov6827 How so? It can be a closed system with a heat exchanger to heat water from an outside source. Basically 0 risk of cross contamination.

[@deniskhafizov6827]

@@jardy3597 inside the plant, right. but when the heat carrier comes right to your home or working place it's completely different story

[@deniskhafizov6827]

@@acorgiwithacrown467 any closed system may leak. remember, nuclear fussion may produce nearly all chemical elements and it's nearly impossible to invent a barrier absolutely impenetratable for all of them

[@superpowerdragon]

i think i just watched an ad

[@julesdingle]

the first US commercial reactor was a submarine reactor- a spare one... but it was not cost effective, too small, so they turned a light water reactor into a really big one, and that big one got bigger and safer and became the design in Hinkley .. so going back in time the submarine reactor but one with off the shelf chips... Oh well

[@ethanandresen8794]

As of June 24, 2023, using off-the-shelf components to accomplish something revolutionary hasn't aged very well.

[@Nill757]

It’s just small, same tech used 40 years ago, and they’re going to build it all in a factory. It’s not like they were inventing the airplane, which BtW was built by bicycle mechanics using off the shelf.

[@skyscraperfan]

That will not happen in Germany. Most parties agreed that no new nuclear power plantes will get approval.

[@Croz89]

That's OK, Germany will just buy nuclear power from France and Poland!

[@markhemsworth2670]

Choosing to be left behind...ya, just import it

[@Netzleben]

@@Croz89 At the moment, France is importing electric energy from Germany ;-)

[@Croz89]

@@Netzleben Yep, they've got maintenance issues with their nuclear fleet. But it's not not clean shiny renewable energy they're importing for the most part, it's dirty brown coal, the worst CO2 emitter of all.

[@Music5362]

@@Croz89 and can still feel self righteous /virtue signal to everyone about it.

[@LoadsOfMana]

This is a cool concept, but while I know that nuclear power is very overly demonized, Completely deflecting a question about the safety of YOUR specific product by saying "nuclear isn't as dangerous as people say" builds zero confidence. Safety is extra critical in small installations popping up all over the place compared to big centralized plants, more instances in more environments means more opportunities for things to go wrong, and a small localized power source for a factory is likely going to be closer to more people than a big nuclear plant. Also I don't trust anyone who smiles like that while they talk, that is one of the most soulless marketing smiles I've ever seen lol.

[@EyesOfByes]

The Swedish steel companies who sold their hydro powerplants decades ago, kind of regret it...

[@johnfoster7596]

A very slick and cursory made corporate advertising video. With absolutely no information about the disposal of the nuclear waste produced by such a power station!

[@Nill757]

“no information … disposal “ They do @6:20. Haul it away every 6 yrs back to factory.

[@BobQuigley]

Will be surprised if this scales, good luck anyway

[@HexaSquirrel]

SMR have to cross all the same hurdles as large NPP, just with significant higher $/KW costs. This is a dead end concept.

[@Petch85]

So by "built in 3 Months" you mean, not build at all yet.🤷

[@andrewsteinhaus8267]

A please do do a long form video on transmission lines

[@atinygoose6199]

Security is a concern. The possibility of sites like this being attacked in a war is a concern. Most importantly I think though, is that I think all of us would like to know that very qualified, educated, and profesional individuals are in charge of nuclear power plants, and how many even are there? Surely not enough to have a team of them in every small power plant of this kind?

[@warcrimemenace6292]

This is one of the many issues I find with this idea as a whole. In ukraine, specially at the start of the current conflict, one of russia´s targets was the ukranian power grid, and they did missile attacks on NPPs. Luckily for everybody those NPPs survived the attacks without too much damage, and without leaking radiation. But if these designs become standard what is most likely to happen is a single attack will cause large amounts of damage.

[@neuralwarp]

The idea is to have them unmanned : walk-away safe.

[@warcrimemenace6292]

@@neuralwarp even in that case it isnt any better. a nuclear meltdown can be disastrous with or without people nearby

[@justinrozario2003]

In the End, Nuclear Bros will win!

[@Game_Hero]

just like crypto bros of course

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

Aren't nuclear reactors in most countries required to have protective concrete shells built around them? To prevent Chernobyl style disasters? (Even if Chernobyl style modes of failure aren't going to happen). EDIT: Ah, so this video is actually a paid ad for the company that makes these reactors.

[@acorgiwithacrown467]

It depends on the type of reactor, some reactors literally cannot melt down, their design inherently prevents another Chernobyl. Massive concrete superstructures are only necessary when there is an actual risk of a meltdown/explosion.

[@stian1236]

Yes thats true. And this video also fails to adress the strict security required around a nuclear power plant, and waste storage

[@namename9998]

@@stian1236 What are you talking about? Its so easy walking into a hospital LOL and yet no one has used dirties but even if they had planes have been used as weapons so we should make planes illegal People go on mass shootings so guns should be illegal. People use kitchen knives to kill people so they should be illegal. Rat poison, cars, etc. Everything should be illegal if you want to protect people. If you dont mind getting licenses so you can buy sugar for tea then good for you but most people dont want to live like that. And make sure to be nice to everyone because they could rat you out and your license to buy food could be revoked. "Has a dirty () ever been used? No. In 1995, Chechen rebels planted but failed to detonate one in a Moscow park, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. There have been reports that terrorist organizations such as () or () have built or tried to build a dirty () , but none has ever been detonated." "Ingredients for a radiological “dirty ()” include the same isotopes that make lifesaving blood transfusions and cancer treatments possible. These materials are located at thousands of sites in more than 150 countries-often poorly secured and vulnerable to theft." "July 7, 2021: A male passenger grabbed the flight controls of a Ryan Air Services Cessna 208 Caravan on approach to Aniak Airport after a scheduled flight from Bethel Airport in Alaska carrying a single pilot and four other passengers. The man briefly placed the aircraft in a nosedive at low altitude before being pushed away by the pilot and restrained by other passengers. The pilot regained control and landed the aircraft safely; no injuries were reported. The man was arrested by Alaska State Troopers and admitted that his actions were an attempted murder-suicide. He was charged with several counts of assault, attempted assault, and making terroristic threats, and may face federal charges."

[@PracticalCat]

Ikr! Where is the containment incase of a meltdown?

[@acorgiwithacrown467]

@@PracticalCat The design can't meltdown. Its not that it has safety features to prevent a meltdown, the design fundamentally makes a meltdown impossible. Its like asking "Why does a bike not have parachutes?! What if it falls from the sky?"

[@mcblt]

Very interesting idea

[@op4000exe]

Small scale nuclear I definitely believe is the future of nuclear. It's so much safer, cheaper and faster compared to grid scale nuclear, as the dangers and costs of it scale exponentially, whereas smaller scale plants are less likely to lead to catastrophes.

[@anxiousearth680]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s Stability is priceless. It is impossible for solar to replace 100% of grid usage as long as long as grid scale storage tech doesn't keep up.

[@Music5362]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s Nothing is cheaper than solar. But the real energy cost is solar + storage. It's the '+ storage' part which is expensive. For sunny parts of the world, you'd only need storage for a day or so. But for Northern Europe in winter, you'd need a few weeks of storage, talking something like 1 TWh of storage.

[@Music5362]

@@user-nu1vn3yy9s I'd wonder how much 1 TWh of storage may cost? Even wind is cheap when the energy market is working. It is those few windless weeks in winter that's the main issue currently. There has been talk about hydrogen as storage, not seen anything on the scale that's needed though.

[@namename9998]

The costs and speed will actually be higher and slower than traditional npp. Look at the cost and time to construct a bus vs all the cars needed to transport the same number of people on buses. As for safer traditional is very safe already.

[@100c0c]

@@namename9998 What NPP takes 3 months? Did you even watch the video?

[@MultiVigarista]

Fusion is coming 😅

[@anxiousearth680]

Not any time soon.

[@MethLord]

It's always coming

[@bottasheimfe5750]

I am ALL for this idea.

[@deniskhafizov6827]

The main issue of the nuclear plants is the extreme toxicity of the materials they have to work with. So even this kind of plant must be secured with way tougher measures that have been shown here.

[@Kennon959]

Also should factor in that Russia is a leader in Nucelar fuel rods to the point even the US is dependent on Rosatom to fuel their reactors

[@juimymary9951]

Still easier to secure than CO2

[@deniskhafizov6827]

@@Kennon959 I don't think this is much of an issue. e.g. Westinghouse already did a good job to replicate fuel rod design for Ukrainian npps of Soviet origin. for a newly built npp this would be no problem at all

[@howardmoon1234]

‘A utility scale nuclear power plant needs a lot of land’… now go and look at the square footage needed for wind, or solar, to power 6 million homes as reliably as a nuclear power plant. Nuclear has the smallest footprint of any carbon free power source by an order of magnitude

[@hallambaker]

Nope, you can have utility scale wind with no land at all. The UK is currently commissioning the Dogger Bank Wind project which is in the north sea. No land needed at all. Land area required for onshore wind is also small since the area below the turbine can be used for grazing etc. Same turns out to be true of solar. Agro-voltaics are the new hot thing. Now look at the total exclusion zone round Chernobyl and Fukushima.

[@howardmoon1234]

@@hallambaker oh dear. You seem to think anything placed in the sea is immune to square footage footprint considerations. The ‘land used for grazing’ thing is STILL a bigger footprint than nuclear even in the most optimistic minimal land use calculations. The same does not ‘turn out to be true’ for solar. Again, even with the most aggressive land minimising calculations you can conceive, the KW/kilometre cubed calcs favour nuclear every time. The exclusion zones are tiny for both. Wine grapes are grown in the Fukushima exclusion zone today. I am visiting Fukishima next week. I will receive less of a radiation dose at the edge the exclusion zone than I will on the flight over there, and the same would be true if I went into the exclusion zone. I’d encourage you to look up deaths per KW for nuclear, solar and wind. The results may surprise you.

[@hallambaker]

@@howardmoon1234 I literally have a degree in nuclear physics mr condescending nincompoop. The figures for nuclear deaths are pure fiction because the Soviet Union lied about the number of deaths caused by Chernobyl: At least 5,000 of the liquidators were dead within a year. The total number of excess deaths is in the tens of thousands. Do not tell me to go look up the propaganda of Stalin's police state where 20 million were murdered in the 30s purges alone. As should be obvious even to a coal industry shill trying to plug nuclear as a means of delaying deployment of renewables, offshore wind takes absolutely ZERO land. There is enough space in the Dogger Bank alone to meet UK needs twice over. The UK is looking to develop at least five offshore sites including some deep water sites so as to provide reliable coverage. The long term plan being to be a net exporter of electricity by 2030. The amount of land required for solar is equally irrelevant since the plan is to build out UK solar in Morocco which has 20x the space required to power all of Europe in its part of the Sahara alone.

[@dannyleung2796]

The danger of physical damaging and terrorist attack is brushed aside. This video also does not address the problem of nuclear materials proliferation in the private sector.

[@pauldannelachica2388]

Very cool hope you go to the Philippines

[@whatshappenedhere1784]

There's a lot of smooth brains in the comments that don't realise nuclear energy is the greenest form of energy production that we currently have. The amount of nuclear waste you have to process is miniscule compared to the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere from any other energy production method.

[@beenthere9770]

No discussion at all about the the radioactive waste generated by these mushrooming nuclear plants? When they “change out the reactor core” it sounds like they are getting an oil change. How do they dispose of it? What are the costs?

[@bhoutdoors507]

Still less impactful than mining and lifecycle waste of solar and wind and battery backup for them

[@PackthatcameBack]

This really isn't a dumb idea at all. This way, the factories can keep producing even if the grid power plants go down, and said power plants can focus on getting their energy out to the households and such that need it the most.

[@clarkkent9080]

Don't you wonder why investors think it is a dumb idea when it is their money?

[@SandBoxJohn]

This is a concept I thought of around 10 years ago. Mass produce United States naval nuclear propulsion plants and place them close to where the power will be used.

[@marinostsalis314]

What can you do with 32 billion in renewables, and without buying expensive unclear fuel. even the maintenance cost of nuclear power station is huge and dont forget the cost of dumping nuclear waste... So why we need small reactors to increase the possibilities of something going wrong? you will need more people to run them more security etc.

[@juimymary9951]

Because batteries, which solar unfortauntely require are even more uneconomical than nuclear fuel and create even more waste which is toxic too.

[@marinostsalis314]

@@juimymary9951 Lifepo4 that are used in storage battery and lately in EV are non toxic and 100% recyclable. We are already moving away from toxic batteries even from rear earth material ones. Take a look at sodium batteries coming to market total game changer in storage battery non toxic 3-4 times cheaper than li-ion ones. Battery cost is going down every year nuclear fuel is only going up.

[@KetogenicGuitars]

This is good start. Those small plants in every village are crucial improvement in national security distributing the energy production.

[@gordon1545]

It would be far too expensive for that. Note that the video didn't talk about price. This is really for businesses who are willing to pay a bit more for the stability, security and independence.

[@marshaldillon4387]

Brilliant Young Frankenstein in the intro.

[@user-gg8we2ot4b]

Super!

[@imaflei]

Never been first

[@TomorrowsBuild]

Congrats!

[@imaflei]

@@TomorrowsBuild love your content (both channels), keep doing what you're doing.

[@johnsamuel1999]

Solar and wind with batteries is still cheaper than a new nuclear power plant (if we include waste handling and storage)

[@Music5362]

For many parts of the world that is probably true. For the UK and other norther European countries we'll need about 2-3 weeks of storage for Dec/Jan for when it's not windy, which is about 1000 GWh of storage, and that's quite a lot. Currently, we use natural gas for that.

[@Rob-ky1ob]

Perhaps, but only solar and wind won't cut it. The amount of batteries you would need to ensure enough energy when the sun is not shining bright enough and the wind is now blowing hard enough are enormous. That means you would always need additional energy sources that are reliable and predictable, like nuclear power. Out of all the available options, nuclear is pretty much the only viable option that is clean and can be used everywhere. While I fully believe we should utilize the sun and wind way more by having more panels and windmills, I also believe we need nuclear to ensure stability on the grid and guaranteed supply. It would be great if nuclear plants like the one in this video could be used to relieve some strain on the grid by cutting off big consumers like datacenters, factories and what not. What is then left on the grid is demand from regular users like you and me. That means we could then close down more coal plants while still having enough energy for all the houses.

[@randomnobody8770]

This is exactly the problem small modular reactor companies are betting they can solve. They'll either do it, or go broke. On paper, its possible to deliver a lower LCOE than utility scale solar/wind + storage in many markets, and they're betting they can deliver in some markets.

[@tellyboy17]

It's actually *a lot* more expensive than nuclear if you include the cost of solving the intermittency problem and adapting the grid. Don't buy into environmentalist propaganda.

[@Al3xki]

Waste handling and storage are included in the price of the electricity and they have been for a very long time. Solar and wind also include waste handling and storage in some markets, but not all, and in the UK and USA this does not necessitate recycling which can cost 10x as much. Solar and wind are cheaper on a marginal energy basis. On a system basis there is no evidence they are, and a lot of evidence they are more expensive. See JP Morgan Chase's latest annual energy paper for some examples of system wide comparisons.

[@mingklytus]

Sounds like a good concept but I am gonna need their ESG score & their DEI Statement before I can go along with it.

[@jonshellmusic]

All this to end up with a PWR? Not so Next-Gen after all! I was hoping this was a Molten Salt Reactor. Because Safety.

[@juliane__]

It will explode in cost per MWh as nuscale did. Nothing to save here. The only argument left is using the same old grid structure as before. But everything else will stay abysmal. Near no one can produce a certified encasement, efficiency is low compared to bigger reactors, industries have to be set up in which qualified personel is already scarce, Learinging curve will alway be lower than renewables, because of the S curve. It will only get more xpensive with time. SMRs are just iterating the past a little bit better, but not good enough to solve the climate crisis.

[@thoos87]

This is a hype and not to be taken seriously. 3 months 😂

[@tellyboy17]

The future is for countries that have an answer for the looming energy crisis. Expect this to be taken seriously.