The word "serious" is so diametrically opposite anything the West is that it's almost comical. the US and western Europe are frivolous, capricious, and frankly stupid in what their leaders and scientific community believe. We live in a clown world of feelings, activism, and utopian goals that are divorced from reality; it's feels like living in the matrix as an awakening person. I hear statements and themes from nearly everyone around me that lack any real understanding of how things work, why they work that way, or an understanding that should that interfere with what somebody WANTS to happen that perhaps they should change their viewpoint rather than continue living and acting ignorantly. Common people are guided by bilge thrown at them in the name of justice for whatever group is supposedly hurt. What a world.
Thank you for your heartening piece. My sincere hope is that the captured will slowly understand the perversely impoverishing effects of their religiosity surrounding almost everything spoken of in popular culture. Maybe we can get a few reactors built since even lefties like AOC see the handwriting on the wall.
Interesting that Moltex was a British company and their reactor specs and projected cost are very impressive, lower cost electricity than anything in Britain right now. But the UK gov't refused to allow them to develop them there, in spite of claiming they were "supporting SMR development". So they had to move to Canada, where they have passed phase 1 licensing. Their reactors are planned to run on Spent Nuclear Fuel, of which the UK has plenty that it claims it wants to get rid of.
Europe is also losing touch with fuel supply. The revolution in Niger cut off the French, and actual fuel manufacture from yellowcake is now dominated by Russia. Expensive energy increases the cost of running UF6 centrifuges. Uranium prices are up about 40%, but that doesn't add much to operating costs.
My information is France only used 5oz of uranium per person per year since it partially reprocesses its fuel. That's about $18/per capita/per year. For 40% of their domestic primary energy needs. 88% of their domestic electricity consumption.
The cost is a bit more than that. Prices usually given are for yellowcake - U3O8, which has to be enriched via making UF6, centrifuging, converting to UO2 before being incorporated into fuel rods. Try out this calculator:
Of course the cost of making the MOX fuel they use is much higher. What I am referring to is the raw uranium that is needed amounts to $18/per capita/per year. So that means raw uranium price/supply is not a significant factor in their fuel supply. The more significant cost is the cost of processing that into fuel rods, which is also increasing due overall inflation.
The figure you quote is based on enriched UO2 consumption (9,700 tonnes p.a. over 65 million people). You need about 3.6lbs of yellowcake to make 5 oz of enriched UO2. It's still not huge, given the large per capita consumption of electricity.
But they use MOX fuel, they partially reprocess their Spent Nuclear Fuel, so I assume from 100 tonnes of SNF they get ~33 tonnes of MOX fuel. So are you talking just enriched uranium or total fuel consumption, including MOX fuel?
Great Britain was the first nation to build a grid scale nuclear power plant - Calder Hall.
It was decided by the UK Government to proceed with the civil nuclear power programme in 1952, and construction at Calder Hall began the following year.
Construction began in 1953 and was carried out by Taylor Woodrow Construction using 1950s engineering and construction techniques, was completed in 1956 and was officially opened on 17 October 1956 by Queen Elizabeth II.
Originally designed for a life of 20 years from respectively 1956-1959, the plant was after 40 years until July 1996 granted an operation licence for a further ten years.
The station was closed on 31 March 2003, the first reactor having been in use for nearly 47 years.
So planning in 1952, construction commenced in 1953, opened October 1957.
That is a very good question indeed. More red tape, weaker politicians and erosion of skill base I think. But if we are to have a reliable grid in the future, we need to rebuild & expand our nuclear capacity.
It's deliberate. You are seeing the same thing happening to Elon Musk and SpaceX, since he's in the bad books with his support of Free Speech, anti-ESG, anti-DEI, anti-Malthusianism, pro-Growth and Republican rather than Democrat. He can built a first-of-a-kind giant rocket, with all that complexity and skill, faster than the Fish and Wildlife can give him an environmental license. With mercenary ENGOs filing lawsuits and protests with the FAA and DFW. His launch might scare some ducks out of their nest. Meanwhile they rubber stamp offshore windfarms that are leading to the extinction of the Right Whale in the Atlantic. And giant solar sites in the middle of wilderness areas. No problem there.
I saw a headline yesterday from a science rag telling us that scientists have figured out why whales and all manner of other sea life are beaching themselves all over the Atlantic Coast...I didn't bother to read the article as I know damn well that it is some complete fantasy proposed by the wind faithful in their quest to dominate every inch of available space with turbines sitting on massive concrete platforms. These people really aren't very bright.
isn't the difference that part of the incentive for the early nuclear stations was to produce materiel for the nuclear weapons program? presumably we have enough of that stuff now.
I like these reactors, from Copenhagen Atomics, 40MWe each, high temperature molten salt, fits inside a standard shipping container (just the reactor, alternators and steam generators are external) and runs on Spent Nuclear Fuel + Thorium.
Energy Future Unveiled! THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, Copenhagen Atomics:
If these politicians really cared about Climate Change and energy shortages they would be pushing these novel reactor designs to the limit and streamline regulations to only the essentials and a complete rejection of the moronic LNT radiation risk claptrap. Obvious that they are lying.
Yes the figure of 470 Mw electric is correct. It is my understanding that Rolls Royce looked to optomise the design to the maximum output that would still be modular, easy to construct and have a good supply chain in place.
You don't say! We wait to see what price level the government (announcement in November) thinks it needs for AR6. A 20% increase for offshore wind is unlikely to be good enough, and more projects risk not being completed from AR4.
The word "serious" is so diametrically opposite anything the West is that it's almost comical. the US and western Europe are frivolous, capricious, and frankly stupid in what their leaders and scientific community believe. We live in a clown world of feelings, activism, and utopian goals that are divorced from reality; it's feels like living in the matrix as an awakening person. I hear statements and themes from nearly everyone around me that lack any real understanding of how things work, why they work that way, or an understanding that should that interfere with what somebody WANTS to happen that perhaps they should change their viewpoint rather than continue living and acting ignorantly. Common people are guided by bilge thrown at them in the name of justice for whatever group is supposedly hurt. What a world.
Thank you for your heartening piece. My sincere hope is that the captured will slowly understand the perversely impoverishing effects of their religiosity surrounding almost everything spoken of in popular culture. Maybe we can get a few reactors built since even lefties like AOC see the handwriting on the wall.
Interesting that Moltex was a British company and their reactor specs and projected cost are very impressive, lower cost electricity than anything in Britain right now. But the UK gov't refused to allow them to develop them there, in spite of claiming they were "supporting SMR development". So they had to move to Canada, where they have passed phase 1 licensing. Their reactors are planned to run on Spent Nuclear Fuel, of which the UK has plenty that it claims it wants to get rid of.
Europe is also losing touch with fuel supply. The revolution in Niger cut off the French, and actual fuel manufacture from yellowcake is now dominated by Russia. Expensive energy increases the cost of running UF6 centrifuges. Uranium prices are up about 40%, but that doesn't add much to operating costs.
My information is France only used 5oz of uranium per person per year since it partially reprocesses its fuel. That's about $18/per capita/per year. For 40% of their domestic primary energy needs. 88% of their domestic electricity consumption.
The cost is a bit more than that. Prices usually given are for yellowcake - U3O8, which has to be enriched via making UF6, centrifuging, converting to UO2 before being incorporated into fuel rods. Try out this calculator:
https://www.uxc.com/p/tools/FuelCalculator.aspx
Of course the cost of making the MOX fuel they use is much higher. What I am referring to is the raw uranium that is needed amounts to $18/per capita/per year. So that means raw uranium price/supply is not a significant factor in their fuel supply. The more significant cost is the cost of processing that into fuel rods, which is also increasing due overall inflation.
The figure you quote is based on enriched UO2 consumption (9,700 tonnes p.a. over 65 million people). You need about 3.6lbs of yellowcake to make 5 oz of enriched UO2. It's still not huge, given the large per capita consumption of electricity.
But they use MOX fuel, they partially reprocess their Spent Nuclear Fuel, so I assume from 100 tonnes of SNF they get ~33 tonnes of MOX fuel. So are you talking just enriched uranium or total fuel consumption, including MOX fuel?
I took data from the world nuclear site article on France:
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx
They state that 17% of electricity is from reprocessed fuel. They also state
France uses some 9700 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate (8200 tonnes of uranium) per year for its electricity generation.
which is 149g of UO2 per capita, or roughly your 5 oz figure.
Great Britain was the first nation to build a grid scale nuclear power plant - Calder Hall.
It was decided by the UK Government to proceed with the civil nuclear power programme in 1952, and construction at Calder Hall began the following year.
Construction began in 1953 and was carried out by Taylor Woodrow Construction using 1950s engineering and construction techniques, was completed in 1956 and was officially opened on 17 October 1956 by Queen Elizabeth II.
Originally designed for a life of 20 years from respectively 1956-1959, the plant was after 40 years until July 1996 granted an operation licence for a further ten years.
The station was closed on 31 March 2003, the first reactor having been in use for nearly 47 years.
So planning in 1952, construction commenced in 1953, opened October 1957.
So what's gone wrong since?
That is a very good question indeed. More red tape, weaker politicians and erosion of skill base I think. But if we are to have a reliable grid in the future, we need to rebuild & expand our nuclear capacity.
It's deliberate. You are seeing the same thing happening to Elon Musk and SpaceX, since he's in the bad books with his support of Free Speech, anti-ESG, anti-DEI, anti-Malthusianism, pro-Growth and Republican rather than Democrat. He can built a first-of-a-kind giant rocket, with all that complexity and skill, faster than the Fish and Wildlife can give him an environmental license. With mercenary ENGOs filing lawsuits and protests with the FAA and DFW. His launch might scare some ducks out of their nest. Meanwhile they rubber stamp offshore windfarms that are leading to the extinction of the Right Whale in the Atlantic. And giant solar sites in the middle of wilderness areas. No problem there.
I saw a headline yesterday from a science rag telling us that scientists have figured out why whales and all manner of other sea life are beaching themselves all over the Atlantic Coast...I didn't bother to read the article as I know damn well that it is some complete fantasy proposed by the wind faithful in their quest to dominate every inch of available space with turbines sitting on massive concrete platforms. These people really aren't very bright.
isn't the difference that part of the incentive for the early nuclear stations was to produce materiel for the nuclear weapons program? presumably we have enough of that stuff now.
I like these reactors, from Copenhagen Atomics, 40MWe each, high temperature molten salt, fits inside a standard shipping container (just the reactor, alternators and steam generators are external) and runs on Spent Nuclear Fuel + Thorium.
Energy Future Unveiled! THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, Copenhagen Atomics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IntvWo4mo
THORIUM: World's CHEAPEST Energy! [Science Unveiled]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U434Sy9BGf8
If these politicians really cared about Climate Change and energy shortages they would be pushing these novel reactor designs to the limit and streamline regulations to only the essentials and a complete rejection of the moronic LNT radiation risk claptrap. Obvious that they are lying.
The RollsRoyce “small” modular reactor at 470MW is not far off the approx 600MW of a traditional reactor. Is that figure correct?
Yes and no. Typical large scale reactors today are 1,000MW and above.
I thought they were usually twins : 2 x 500 MW or 2 x 600MW ?
Hinkley C is 2 x 1.6GW. Barakah so far is 3 x 1.35GW. 4th unit being built.
Yes the figure of 470 Mw electric is correct. It is my understanding that Rolls Royce looked to optomise the design to the maximum output that would still be modular, easy to construct and have a good supply chain in place.
Meanwhile...
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/10/24/offshore-wind-auction-failure-may-hike-wholesale-energy-prices-by-20/
You don't say! We wait to see what price level the government (announcement in November) thinks it needs for AR6. A 20% increase for offshore wind is unlikely to be good enough, and more projects risk not being completed from AR4.