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Nuclear - Blog Posts
I've recently been seeing this article making rounds around this website and particularly people misusing this very cool advancement to imply that modern nuclear reactors are "unsafe" or "dangerous", which is partially due to the just blatantly bad journalism on display here.
The accomplishment of this new reactor is definitely exceptionally impressive but I think that news websites (Even ones specializing in science) have been mischaracterizing the reactor as "meltdown-proof" which is just - wrong? and implies that current reactors are just begging to meltdown.
The cool thing about this new reactor is that its passively cooled, but that doesn't mean its INVULNERABLE to nuclear meltdowns, for example the Chernobyl meltdown happened completely independently of whether it was cooled passively or not.
In fact, passive cooling would only pose an advantage in situations where ALL pumps and backup pumps break and the core doesn't get coolant pumped to it. That's happened exactly once: in Fukushima and only after a literal tsunami hit it, and there's no reason to think that the passive Helium coolant in this new reactor wouldn't also just break. Fukushima happened because of corruption in regulation, preventing suitable defenses against this exact thing from getting built, not because of unsafe reactor design.
There's also some articles like this one which talk about the new reactor being "self-regulating" which is true, but misses the point that the vast majority of nuclear reactors in service today are also stable in the exact same way. Negative feedback loops are a HUGE part of reactor design, the most popular reactor design today is the Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) which is incredibly stable - PWRs just truly hate increasing (or decreasing) energy output.
Most nuclear reactors today are already incredibly safe, even if you had complete control over a nuclear reactor it would be effectively impossible to cause a meltdown on purpose - both the physics of the system and the thousands of automated components would beat the ever loving shit out of any hope of trying to do so.
Articles like these just turn this impressive achievements into a kind of fearmongering over the "dangerous" nuclear reactors currently being used. The fact is that nuclear reactors are incredibly safe, PWRs are an incredible feat of engineering genius and its a genuine shame that the general public isn't aware of how much care goes into their design and safety, let alone how useful and essential they are in our electrical systems.
Modern nuclear reactors are clean, they are safe, and they are vital to a healthy energy grid in the post-fossil-fuel future.
A really good read I highly recommend is Colin Tucker's How To Drive A Nuclear Reactor. He's very clear and very frank with the workings and reality of nuclear power today.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is why I'm pro-nuclear reactors. Seriously, stop bringing up Fukushima and Chernobyl for reasons why we should demonize this energy source. Accept the problem is the coal and fossil fuels and start replacing them with nuclear reactors, solar panels, hydropower plant, and wind turbines. Stop letting these freak accidents scare you into avoiding nuclear as an option because nowadays with the safeguards we have in place at modern-day reactors, the chances of a disastrous meltdown happening like that are so astronomically low that it may as well be zero. You want clean energy? Go nuclear and maybe we might actually have the chance to reverse some of the damage we have brought upon the planet we live on.
Saw my first reactor core. I am a changed woman
That probably explains why I write magic the way I do.
Honestly, the fact that terry Pratchett has experience around nuclear power makes so much sense once you realize what magic is standing as a metaphor for in the discworld. Like, look at this fucking quote from going postal:
"That's why [magic] was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not "not doing magic" because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn't. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again."
Like... It feels incredibly obvious what he's talking about once you know the context.
Megadeth! Interpretación de la portada de "For Sale". Gracias Yago!! Hecho en @thehowltattoo #metalhead #megadeth #megadethfans #rattlehead #davemustaine #metal #trashmetal #nuclearbomb #nuclear #forsale #peaceforsale #colortattoo #newschooltattoo #neotraditionaltattoo #madridtattoo #spaintattoo #jairock #jairocktattoo #jairockfernandez #ink #inked #inkedup #metaltattoo #skulltattoo #skull #thehowltattoo
NUCLEAR REVAMP: R20bn life extension of Koeberg power station poses significant risks for South Africa.
Weird Magnetic Behavior in Space
In between the planets, stars and other bits of rock and dust, space seems pretty much empty. But the super-spread out matter that is there follows a different set of rules than what we know here on Earth.
For the most part, what we think of as empty space is filled with plasma. Plasma is ionized gas, where electrons have split off from positive ions, creating a sea of charged particles. In most of space, this plasma is so thin and spread out that space is still about a thousand times emptier than the vacuums we can create on Earth. Even still, plasma is often the only thing out there in vast swaths of space — and its unique characteristics mean that it interacts with electric and magnetic fields in complicated ways that we are just beginning to understand.
Five years ago, we launched a quartet of satellites to study one of the most important yet most elusive behaviors of that material in space — a kind of magnetic explosion that had never before been adequately studied up close, called magnetic reconnection. Here are five of the ways the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) has helped us study this intriguing magnetic phenomenon.
1. Seeing magnetic explosions up close
Magnetic reconnection is the explosive snapping and forging of magnetic fields, a process that can only happen in plasmas — and it's at the heart of space weather storms that manifest around Earth.
When the Sun launches clouds of solar material — which is also made of plasma — toward Earth, the magnetic field embedded within the material collides with Earth's huge global magnetic field. This sets off magnetic reconnection that injects energy into near-Earth space, triggering a host of effects — induced electric currents that can harm power grids, to changes in the upper atmosphere that can affect satellites, to rains of particles into the atmosphere that can cause the glow of the aurora.
Though scientists had theorized about magnetic reconnection for decades, we'd never had a chance to study it on the small scales at which it occurs. Determining how magnetic reconnection works was one of the key jobs MMS was tasked with — and the mission quickly delivered. Using instruments that measured 100 times faster than previous missions, the MMS observations quickly determined which of several 50-year-old theories about magnetic reconnection were correct. It also showed how the physics of electrons dominates the process — a subject of debate before the launch.
2. Finding explosions in surprising new places
In the five years after launch, MMS made over a thousand trips around Earth, passing through countless magnetic reconnection events. It saw magnetic reconnection where scientists first expected it: at the nose of Earth's magnetic field, and far behind Earth, away from the Sun. But it also found this process in some unexpected places — including a region thought to be too tumultuous for magnetic reconnection to happen.
As solar material speeds away from the Sun in a flow called the solar wind, it piles up as it encounters Earth's magnetic field, creating a turbulent region called the magnetosheath. Scientists had only seen magnetic reconnection happening in relatively calm regions of space, and they weren't sure if this process could even happen in such a chaotic place. But MMS' precise measurements revealed that magnetic reconnection happens even in the magnetosheath.
MMS also spotted magnetic reconnection happening in giant magnetic tubes, leftover from earlier magnetic explosions, and in plasma vortices shaped like ocean waves — based on the mission's observations, it seems magnetic reconnection is virtually ubiquitous in any place where opposing magnetic fields in a plasma meet.
3. How energy is transferred
Magnetic reconnection is one of the major ways that energy is transferred in plasma throughout the universe — and the MMS mission discovered that tiny electrons hold the key to this process.
Electrons in a strong magnetic field usually exhibit a simple behavior: They spin tight spirals along the magnetic field. In a weaker field region, where the direction of the magnetic field reverses, the electrons go freestyle — bouncing and wagging back and forth in a type of movement called Speiser motion.
Flying just 4.5 miles apart, the MMS spacecraft measured what happens in a magnetic field with intermediate strength: These electrons dance a hybrid, meandering motion — spiraling and bouncing about before being ejected from the region. This takes away some of the magnetic field’s energy.
4. Surpassing computer simulations
Before we had direct measurements from the MMS mission, computer simulations were the best tool scientists had to study plasma's unusual magnetic behavior in space. But MMS' data has revealed that these processes are even more surprising than we thought — showing us new electron-scale physics that computer simulations are still trying to catch up with. Having such detailed data has spurred theoretical physicists to rethink their models and understand the specific mechanisms behind magnetic reconnection in unexpected ways.
5. In deep space & nuclear reactions
Although MMS studies plasma near Earth, what we learn helps us understand plasma everywhere. In space, magnetic reconnection happens in explosions on the Sun, in supernovas, and near black holes.
These magnetic explosions also happen on Earth, but only under the most extreme circumstances: for example, in nuclear fusion experiments. MMS' measurements of plasma's behavior are helping scientists better understand and potentially control magnetic reconnection, which may lead to improved nuclear fusion techniques to generate energy more efficiently.
This quartet of spacecraft was originally designed for a two-year mission, and they still have plenty of fuel left — meaning we have the chance to keep uncovering new facets of plasma's intriguing behavior for years to come. Keep up with the latest on the mission at nasa.gov/mms.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
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This poster deserves more attention I swear.
Dome City Blog 3 - Energy production in the city
In today's blog I plan to talk about energy production and use within a Dome City.
In general, residents of cities use less energy per capita, then people in rural areas. Some reasons for this are:
Distances travelled can be less,
Mass transportation systems can work well,
Shared walls in housing lead to lower heating requirements,
If energy sources are located in the city then combined heat and power can be used, and
Less resources are used to provide infrastructure for high density populations compared to low density ones.
A Dome City should have nearby power resources large enough to cover the needs of the population for electricity, heating, cooling and local transport within the city. Transport away from the city would most probably provided in standard cars and trucks powered by gasoline and diesel.
I would propose that the Dome City has a electricity power station sited just beside it. This power station would be located close enough to the Dome City to allow the waste heat, which arises from electricity production, to be used to provide hot water, heating and if required, cooling, to the city. This is known as combined heat and power (CHP) or as cogeneration. When a Dome City is sited in a tropical location then a "trigeneration" systems which includes refrigeration could be provided. The typical efficiency of thermal power plants for electricity is 30% to 40%. This waste heat represents a significant resource. District heating would be feature of the Dome City. This heat supplied to residents and business would form another source of income for the city.
My preferred method of dealing with electricity production would be with Nuclear Power. Nuclear Power is a low-carbon form of electricity production that is not so climate dependent compared to wind or solar. Furthermore, while wind and solar can be excellent sources of low-carbon electricity at the right locations, these forms of energy production are intermittent. This intermittentcy requires back up power sources to cover the times when these renewable sources cannot provide power.
There are proposals for new smaller reactors known as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). By definition these reactors have electricity outputs of less than 300 MWe (Megawatts electrical). The suggested size of these reactors varies from 2 MWe for the UPower proposal to 130 MWe for the B&W MPower proposal. The system that I would most want to see would be 3 number NuScale 45 MWe reactors to provide electricity and heat to the city. A combined output of 135 MWe would generally provide more power than the city would require. I would estimate that the city will consume around 100MWe. However, the additional supply could be used to entice power hungry industries to move to the city. Some energy intensive industries are data centres or heavy manufacturing. Alternatively, the additional supply above the needs of the city would be a useful source of income for the city.
The NuScale reactors have a refueling cycle of around 2 years. Refueling would be staggered such that no more than one reactor is off line at any one time. In the UK, the city should be connected to the National Grid and any shortfall in power during a refueling shut-down could be supplied from the grid.
The use of 3 number SMR's has the advantage of "right-sizing" the plant to the population of the Dome City. The Dome City will take several years to build. Once the lower levels have been constructed I would expect that people would begin to move in. However, to reach the full population of around 100,000 people will take a number of years. Initially a single reactor would provided for power. The second and third would follow in later years when the population as grown large enough to justify the additional generating capacity.
I would very much hope that the power station for the city be owned and operated by the municipality.
I appreciate that there will be some reading this blog that are opposed to or afraid of nuclear power. In addition, the NuScale SMR is still in the design and licensing phase. We are still waiting for the first one to be constructed. An alternative to an SMR that would accomplish much the same ends is to have a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power plant producing electrical power for the city.
This brief outline on the supply of electrical power and heat to a proposed Dome City has set out what I consider to be the "best" option. The compact nature of the Dome City would allow Combined Heat and Power to be feasible. The power station would have 2 sources of income. One comes from the Electricity produced and the second is the hot water and heat supplied. This would increase it's financial performance and make it easier to find financing for this aspect of Dome City development.
Really Tiny Reactors
I would be keen to see really tiny reactors becoming ubiquitous. We need more than the typical 1000 MWe class reactors to help solve the world's energy and climate problems. The problem with this class of Large Reactor is that they cost Billions and take between 4 and 6 years to build.
What if a reactor were the size of a tea kettle and the whole of the reactor, shielding and power production could fit in something the size of a tall refrigerator? These reactors could be rolled out much more quickly at low capital cost and very low fuel costs.
In my opinion the requirements for such a reactor are:
Inherent and passive safety of operation,
At least 5 years before reactor needs to be refueled,
An ability to run unattended,
Production of both electricity and heat as required,
Ability to load follow electricity demand,
Use of either naturally occurring Uranium or Low Enriched Uranium.
I would hope that there would be a range of power outputs from this family of reactors. I would hope that a reactor as small as 3 kW electric could be produced. The size of 3 kW was chosen as that seems to be the typical small petrol generator size.
This size of reactor does exist in the form of research reactors. According to World Nuclear Association web site on research reactors, reactors with heat outputs as low as 0.1 kW thermal exist.
An example of the kind of reactor (although not for the production of electricity) is the SLOWPOKE reactor designed by Atomic Energy Canada Limited (AECL). There have been different variations of this reactor but the standard one has an output of 20 kW thermal. AECL have done the design for a larger one with an output of between 2 and 10 Mw thermal to be used as a source of district heating. To me this shows that the class of reactors I am interested in is possible from a technical point of view. Of course, like most things associated with Nuclear Power the technical aspects are only a small part of the ability to introduce the technology.
Give Nuclear Power Plants cool names
The list below shows the 16 Nuclear Reactors currently operating in the UK. It was taken from the World Nuclear web site at
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-T-Z/United-Kingdom/
I would urge those naming Nuclear Power Plants in the future, pick cool names for Nuclear Power Plants instead of simply naming them after a location. Names that come to mind are "Opportunity", "Hope", "Progress", "Our Children's Future", "Reliability" etc. In fact you could have a competition and ask local children to name the plant.
In the Iain M. Banks Science Fiction books there are ships capable of faster than light travel controlled by "Minds". "Minds" are cognitive machine and because they are cognitive they get to name themselves. There names introduce a bit of whimsy into what often is a very serious business. A bit like Nuclear Power, a serious business that would benefit from a lighter and more fun image.
A list of the names of the "Minds" appearing in some of Iain M. Banks novels is available at Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_%28The_Culture%29
I think the favourite name there that could be applied to a good Nuclear Power Plant is "Vision Of Hope Surpassed".
In addition, it might be good to hear an opponent of a Nuclear Power Plant saying something along the lines of "I don't want to see "Our Children's Future" built" or carrying placards the say "No Nukes ! Stop Hope!". Quite often this is what they really are saying but without being explicit.
Dreams of Russian goverment
(remake of picture M.N.Romadin)
(continued from previous post)
The big story in Houser and Mohan's study is where these cleaner forms of energy are coming from that are responsible for half of the drop in emissions. It's generally assumed that the drop is a result of cleaner and cheap natural gas pushing out dirty coal. However, Houser and Mohan show that we shouldn't be counting out reneables.
Plumer:
Natural gas is indeed pushing out dirtier coal, and that makes a sizable difference (burning natural gas for electricity emits about half the carbon-dioxide that burning coal does). But wind farms are also sprouting up across the country, thanks to government subsidies. What’s more, industrial sites are burning more biomass for heat and electricity, while biofuels like ethanol are nudging out oil. All of that has done a lot to cut emissions.
From the Washington Post:
"There are two ways to think about the cost of energy. There’s the dollar amount that shows up on our utility bills or at the pump. And then there’s the “social cost” — all the adverse consequences that various energy sources... end up foisting on the public."
"The blue bars represent the current market cost of various energy sources. On top of that, Greenstone and Looney have added estimated health damages from air pollution (the purple bar), as well as the cost of climate-changing carbon emissions that come with burning fossil fuels (the gray bar)."
"At the end of the paper, Greenstone and Looney argue that the government should put a price on the social costs of fossil fuels — either through a cap on emissions or a tax. “If firms and consumers faced the full cost of their energy use,” they write, “they would have a greater incentive to make more-informed and socially efficient decisions about energy consumption.”"
Tooth seed | 2014 | ©Ponz
Aftermath.
©Robin Fifield 2023.
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concept: there are lots of different worlds and all of them have different levels of access to magic. Some are just all over the place and some have no magic at all.
You would think that we would be one of the strictly non-magical worlds, but actually, that’s not the case—we don’t have like, a huge excess of magic, but we have, like, dreams, and the placebo effect, which puts us pretty solidly in the “Numinous” world category.