Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread
Reply #571 –
You need to update your knowledge base, water isn't part of the cooling system of modern nuclear because at high temperature and velocity water becomes hyper corrosive.
Old archaic designs fundamentally spend a huge chunk of there time managing and disposing of sacrificial anodes / cathodes to prevent the cooling water eroding critical components, coal and gas have the very same issue. For reference hot fast flowing water is even more corrosive than the molten salts being used.
But of course you must know this, because if your claims that modern thermal power generation needs lots of water were true then Solar Thermal would also be dead and buried here is Oz, but because it fundamentally uses the same molten salt technology harness heat energy as modern thorium or modular nuclear reactor designs it is viable.
Modern modular reactors are self contained and fully enclosed, they are referred to as nuclear batteries and are water free, much like the devices on aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, space probes, etc., etc., the a standalone unit that can be swapped in and out of service with a standard crane. There are several projects running right now to improve the weight and mobility, so they can be dropped by helicopter or heavy lift aircraft into disaster zones restoring power in hours or days instead of weeks or months. The only difference between that emergency operation and suburban energy is scale, like a single battery versus a bank of batteries.
You've been reading too much sci fi LP
Most planned Small Modular Reactors will be water-cooled as it's the cheapest and most reliable form of cooling. The two Russian SMRs in operation are located on a floating power station for cooling purposes.
Nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers use highly purified sea water for cooling. The Russians used lead-bismuth for cooling but its corrosive and radiotoxic properties were too problematic. One US nuclear submarine was sodium-cooled but its reactor was replaced with a conventional pressurised water reactor within 12 months.
Up to 12 SMRs have to be clustered together to provide equivalent power to a conventional nuclear or fossil fuel power plant. The advantage is that SMRs don't have to be constructed on site but can be assembled from modular components shipped to installation sites. As SMRs weigh 500-700 tonnes, I think we're going to need a bigger helicopter