Nuclear power..
Discussion
I just stumbled upon this website:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.htm...
They're a company that plan to market a nuclear power plant that is essentially the size of a shed and can output 25MW for 8-10 years with little maintenance and next to no chance of any kind of meltdown situation because of the reactor design..
The design is solid and well tested, it's licensed from Los Alamos where about 65 years ago they did a little project by the name of "Manhattan"
Anyway, some rough calculations. The company says these things will sell for $50m so lets just make that $75m since it's more realistic.
Convert to UK monies. That's give or take £50m at the moment.
They have a life span of 8-10 years depending on usage. Lets use 7 years as a safe guide.
So the cost is £50m to power 20,000 homes for 7 years.
(£50M / 20,000)/7 = £357 a year
So my question to you is:
Would you mind your council tax going up by £357 a year if it meant you didn't have to pay an electricity bill?
(BTW, if they manage to hit their targets. The running time being 8 years and price $50m then the yearly council tax increase would be only £212)
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.htm...
They're a company that plan to market a nuclear power plant that is essentially the size of a shed and can output 25MW for 8-10 years with little maintenance and next to no chance of any kind of meltdown situation because of the reactor design..
The design is solid and well tested, it's licensed from Los Alamos where about 65 years ago they did a little project by the name of "Manhattan"
Anyway, some rough calculations. The company says these things will sell for $50m so lets just make that $75m since it's more realistic.
Convert to UK monies. That's give or take £50m at the moment.
They have a life span of 8-10 years depending on usage. Lets use 7 years as a safe guide.
So the cost is £50m to power 20,000 homes for 7 years.
(£50M / 20,000)/7 = £357 a year
So my question to you is:
Would you mind your council tax going up by £357 a year if it meant you didn't have to pay an electricity bill?
(BTW, if they manage to hit their targets. The running time being 8 years and price $50m then the yearly council tax increase would be only £212)
soad said:
But will the cost stay at £357 though? Will it increase in order to make profits?!
And what happens after those 7 years to the nuclear plant?
Profits? Profits don't come into my theoretical. This would be done by a competent government (I know, I'm stretching reality a bit here) to benefit the people and to reach some of its green goals..And what happens after those 7 years to the nuclear plant?
After 7 years you send the "Power module" as they've called it back and they replace the fuel for you. They have not talked about cost, but assume it costs exactly the same. So that's £50m every 7-10 years.
Silent1 said:
I'm all for nuclear power, when done properly (i.e. not by the russians) a lack of water will stop it working, not cause it to set on fire.
Quite right. However once you have a few going they could work like a P2P system. Using each others resources when needed.
As such if one went down, another could take up the slack.
When demand is low we could use the energy for other uses by either storing it (Hydrogen, gravity, etc) or selling it to other countries..
Hell, at night time the plants could churn out hydrogen for our cars ;D
Seems like a pretty good way to kickstart hydrogen powered cars too.
Edited by Frankeh on Friday 28th May 14:35
I don't really see the appeal of the dinky ones if the infrastructure is available to build a proper one. The power out/intermediate waste generated ratio and the thermal efficiency of these will be much lower than a modern PWR. These are perfect for sticking out in the middle of nowhere but rubbish for developed countries with existing power grids.
And another thing, I just looked up how much Sizewell B cost and how much it outputs.
£3.7bn in todays money.
It outputs 1,250MW ish.
So that means to replace it you would need 50 of the mini reactors, each costing £50m.
£2.5bn.
Although, you have to times that by 4 as the expected lifetime of Sizewell B is 40 years. I don't know the running costs of sizewell B though...
So it's £11bn (Added an extra billion for misc costs over the 40 years)..
Enough to power 1,000,000 homes.
I make that £275 a year per house.
£3.7bn in todays money.
It outputs 1,250MW ish.
So that means to replace it you would need 50 of the mini reactors, each costing £50m.
£2.5bn.
Although, you have to times that by 4 as the expected lifetime of Sizewell B is 40 years. I don't know the running costs of sizewell B though...
So it's £11bn (Added an extra billion for misc costs over the 40 years)..
Enough to power 1,000,000 homes.
I make that £275 a year per house.
hairykrishna said:
I don't really see the appeal of the dinky ones if the infrastructure is available to build a proper one. The power out/intermediate waste generated ratio and the thermal efficiency of these will be much lower than a modern PWR. These are perfect for sticking out in the middle of nowhere but rubbish for developed countries with existing power grids.
Surely the advantages of non centrally located power production is obvious. It's the same reason we don't like relying on other countries for oil and gas.
It's like p2p networking.
Sure, you can have 5 high speed seeds and 500 leechers downloading. But if just one of those large seeds goes down then your speed would drop dramatically, as would availability.
It's better to have 500 slow seeds and 500 leechers. If 1 seed goes down, you wouldn't even notice a speed decline.
Helps protect from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, attacks from other countries, malfunctions.
The nuclear power station I mentioned earlier had to be shut down and we lost 3% of our power production just like that.
Marty Funkhouser said:
'Nuclear power' and 'low maintenance' should never be in the same sentence.
Well when it comes to the reactor its self there's no moving parts..Maintenance would be needed on the steam generation and the turbines. But I think we've got them to a level where they're pretty reliable.
In the grand scheme of things I doubt maintenance would be a huge issue or up the price per house more than maybe £10.
Frankeh said:
I just stumbled upon this website:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.htm...
They're a company that plan to market a nuclear power plant that is essentially the size of a shed and can output 25MW for 8-10 years with little maintenance and next to no chance of any kind of meltdown situation because of the reactor design..
The design is solid and well tested, it's licensed from Los Alamos where about 65 years ago they did a little project by the name of "Manhattan"
Anyway, some rough calculations. The company says these things will sell for $50m so lets just make that $75m since it's more realistic.
Convert to UK monies. That's give or take £50m at the moment.
They have a life span of 8-10 years depending on usage. Lets use 7 years as a safe guide.
So the cost is £50m to power 20,000 homes for 7 years.
(£50M / 20,000)/7 = £357 a year
So my question to you is:
Would you mind your council tax going up by £357 a year if it meant you didn't have to pay an electricity bill?
(BTW, if they manage to hit their targets. The running time being 8 years and price $50m then the yearly council tax increase would be only £212)
Read it on the internet so it must be true....ffshttp://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.htm...
They're a company that plan to market a nuclear power plant that is essentially the size of a shed and can output 25MW for 8-10 years with little maintenance and next to no chance of any kind of meltdown situation because of the reactor design..
The design is solid and well tested, it's licensed from Los Alamos where about 65 years ago they did a little project by the name of "Manhattan"
Anyway, some rough calculations. The company says these things will sell for $50m so lets just make that $75m since it's more realistic.
Convert to UK monies. That's give or take £50m at the moment.
They have a life span of 8-10 years depending on usage. Lets use 7 years as a safe guide.
So the cost is £50m to power 20,000 homes for 7 years.
(£50M / 20,000)/7 = £357 a year
So my question to you is:
Would you mind your council tax going up by £357 a year if it meant you didn't have to pay an electricity bill?
(BTW, if they manage to hit their targets. The running time being 8 years and price $50m then the yearly council tax increase would be only £212)
Frankeh said:
Surely the advantages of non centrally located power production is obvious.
It's the same reason we don't like relying on other countries for oil and gas.
It's like p2p networking...
Right, except for one small difference; with p2p networking instead of centralised download servers you're not increasing the amount of nuclear waste you create.It's the same reason we don't like relying on other countries for oil and gas.
It's like p2p networking...
TwistingMyMelon said:
Frankeh said:
I just stumbled upon this website:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.htm...
They're a company that plan to market a nuclear power plant that is essentially the size of a shed and can output 25MW for 8-10 years with little maintenance and next to no chance of any kind of meltdown situation because of the reactor design..
The design is solid and well tested, it's licensed from Los Alamos where about 65 years ago they did a little project by the name of "Manhattan"
Anyway, some rough calculations. The company says these things will sell for $50m so lets just make that $75m since it's more realistic.
Convert to UK monies. That's give or take £50m at the moment.
They have a life span of 8-10 years depending on usage. Lets use 7 years as a safe guide.
So the cost is £50m to power 20,000 homes for 7 years.
(£50M / 20,000)/7 = £357 a year
So my question to you is:
Would you mind your council tax going up by £357 a year if it meant you didn't have to pay an electricity bill?
(BTW, if they manage to hit their targets. The running time being 8 years and price $50m then the yearly council tax increase would be only £212)
Read it on the internet so it must be true....ffshttp://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.htm...
They're a company that plan to market a nuclear power plant that is essentially the size of a shed and can output 25MW for 8-10 years with little maintenance and next to no chance of any kind of meltdown situation because of the reactor design..
The design is solid and well tested, it's licensed from Los Alamos where about 65 years ago they did a little project by the name of "Manhattan"
Anyway, some rough calculations. The company says these things will sell for $50m so lets just make that $75m since it's more realistic.
Convert to UK monies. That's give or take £50m at the moment.
They have a life span of 8-10 years depending on usage. Lets use 7 years as a safe guide.
So the cost is £50m to power 20,000 homes for 7 years.
(£50M / 20,000)/7 = £357 a year
So my question to you is:
Would you mind your council tax going up by £357 a year if it meant you didn't have to pay an electricity bill?
(BTW, if they manage to hit their targets. The running time being 8 years and price $50m then the yearly council tax increase would be only £212)
Bloomberg respectable enough?
cs02rm0 said:
increasing the amount of nuclear waste you create.
Is that an assumption or does it say the amount of waste that will be created on their fact sheet?The big plants refuel once every 18 months. These are once ever 8-10 years (Official figures)..
I'll admit that there probably will be more waste, but does that really matter? We just need to make sure we reprocess where possible and dispose of correctly (Very far underground).
Frankeh said:
Marty Funkhouser said:
'Nuclear power' and 'low maintenance' should never be in the same sentence.
Well when it comes to the reactor its self there's no moving parts..Maintenance would be needed on the steam generation and the turbines. But I think we've got them to a level where they're pretty reliable.
In the grand scheme of things I doubt maintenance would be a huge issue or up the price per house more than maybe £10.
When nuclear power first came along it was going to be so cheap that they weren't going to bother metering it.
It's an assumption, but not the only consideration around it. You also want as few disposal sites as possible and you don't really want to be transporting nuclear waste around all over the place and end up dropping it on the M4. There are definitely economies of scale even if the amount of waste is proportional.
Does having to deal with nuclear waste matter? Well, I hope someone's worrying about it.
Does having to deal with nuclear waste matter? Well, I hope someone's worrying about it.
Frankeh said:
cs02rm0 said:
increasing the amount of nuclear waste you create.
Is that an assumption or does it say the amount of waste that will be created on their fact sheet?The big plants refuel once every 18 months. These are once ever 8-10 years (Official figures)..
I'll admit that there probably will be more waste, but does that really matter? We just need to make sure we reprocess where possible and dispose of correctly (Very far underground).
As for the fuel itself, my educated guess is that this is probably lower burnup than the big plants so it's going to be worse on this front too. How often it's refuelled is an irrelevance.
This is (possibly) good for remote, compact, applications where you want to unload a couple of shipping containers and set up a power plant. Not good for generating a large developed countries electricity.
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