UK Backs Rolls-Royce Project To Build a Nuclear Reactor On the Moon - Slashdot
source link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/03/17/2143239/uk-backs-rolls-royce-project-to-build-a-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon
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UK Backs Rolls-Royce Project To Build a Nuclear Reactor On the Moon
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by yo303 ( 558777 ) on Saturday March 18, 2023 @03:07AM (#63379875)
Do you want Space: 1999? Because that's how you get Space: 1999.
How about building some nuclear plant back down here where we need it?
These people are definitely gonna.
We still have plenty for you to play with at Chernbyl, Fukishima etc. Do not worry though, this is why we are getting so much stupid propaganda
Speaking of stupid propaganda... Chernobyl type plants have never been build and have always been wildly illegal in every western country. Whether or not the UK chooses to build nuclear plants has literally zero bearing on whether some idiot in a different country decides to do something astoundingly stupid with a power plant. Bringing up Chernobyl on a thread about UK nuclear power is stupid propaganda.
And... when do you think the last tsunami in the UK was?
stupid propaganda about how wonderful EVs are
Not dumping pollution right where people live is generally considered a "good idea". You have to be be some sort of far out wingnut to be an air pollution science denialist.
with them the ability to make loads of lovely bombs.
And speaking again of stupid propaganda. This is fractally not-even-wrong.
1. The UK and US developed nuclear bombs before they developed nuclear power. Also, Israel has no nuclear power yet almost certainly nuclear weapons
2. Good nuclear power plants make poor plutonium producers because they fission as much as they can to maximise energy yields.
3. Far more countries have nuclear power than nuclear weapons (even excluding Japan...)
4. Some states have nuclear power, but have nuclear weapons produced by a different state entirely
5. The UK already has nuclear weapons and as you now know, has done since before it had nuclear power plants. Not building more nuclear power is not going to reduce the UK weapons stockpile.
6. The countries with nuclear weapons mostly already have more than they can already deal with. Russia can't even afford to maintain the tyres on it's military logistics trucks.
7. You can also power EVs from renewable energy and they're almost the perfect candidate because only a tiny fraction need power immediately at any point.
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I'm not going to get into tge usually idiocy of electric cars, but the biggest thing seemingly being missed is the lack of an atmosphere on the moon. The moon effectively sweeps up a lot of astroids. These are a small but important danger as we settle more and more on the moon. The earth burns a lot of them up. That won't be the case on the moon.
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It seems that would be best.
That is a good point, pretty much anything we build on the moon has to be buried.
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The new reactor at Hinkley Point C is up to 33 billion GBP already. Original estimate was 17 billion. From planning to generating the first electricity will be around 20 years, which is what EDF is quoting for new nuclear plants these days.
Regardless of how good or bad the technology is, what the risk of disaster is, the fact it's so expensive and so slow it just can't be part of our net zero solution. We have to use renewable, and we have to make them work. And we will.
As for reactors on the Moon, I'm not
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It appears to me that the problem is not with nuclear power but with how UK has managed it. We saw nuclear power reactors built in about 8 years in UAE, so we know it doesn't take 20 years to complete them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Why has the new reactor at Hinkley Point gone so far beyond budget and schedule? There's plenty of contributing factors. Why focus on Hinkley Point when there's many other nuclear power projects all over the world? The build time for the nuclear reactors in UAE is ac
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The UAE doesn't have human rights, uses what amounts to slave labour to build stuff, and doesn't really care about the environmental impact.
Perhaps more importantly, the UAE can afford to pay for nuclear power. The UK can't, which is why it had to get Chinese investment to get Hinkley off the ground. We probably don't want our critical energy infrastructure to be owned by the French, who are building and operating it, let alone the Chinese.
It's not just the UK by the way. 20 years is what EDF quotes for all
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That doesn't make anything the GP said right or anything I said wrong.
The new reactor at Hinkley Point C is up to 33 billion GBP already.
Cost overruns plague projects here, out political classes simply do not value science and engineering and this creates an environment where big projects are doomed to this kind of thing. We do know for a fact that one can install two EPR reactors for around £10 billion, because that's been done.
As for reactors on the Moon, I'm not sure we will ever want them.
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Sure, I'm not saying the GP was right.
Whatever the reason, nuclear is extremely expensive in Europe, and that is very unlikely to change. The main issue is the liability. Governments can't just scrap all the nuclear safety regs, because they exist for a legal reason.
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Spoken like a true believer.
I don't know where you got your facts. Here are actual ones:
- Hinkley Point C project was launched in 2012
- Construction started in 2018
- Commercial operation is planned for 2027By the way, a good part of the delay was because people like you kept complaining, and unfortunately, in our civilized world it takes time to debunk your fake arguments. This is the equivalent of someone actively puncturing the tires of a car, and then saying "haha, you see! This car can't go fast!". They
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Hinkley Point C was announced in 2010. Nuclear licence granted in 2012, fast tracked because it is an existing nuclear site and operator.
Commercial operation has been delayed again, won't be ready for 2027.
Irrelevant. EDF, a French company, is building it. They have build similar reactors in China, and there is one other under construction in Europe (also delayed and massively over budget). That's just how long it takes in Europe, even when it gets fast-tracked and built on an existing site.
That's not a goo
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Made up fact. Something that is fast-tracked doesn't get a 6 years delay (or even 8 years if you use the 2010 date, which is just the date people were contemplating building it, and not the actual official "launch" of the project which was indeed in 2012).
Most of the delay before the start of the construction was because of civil recourses and lawsuits by welsh opponents. As I said in my previous post, it unfortunately takes time to debunk myths spread by people who don't understand how science works. Somet
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The delay was because EDF is a basket case. For a while its liabilities were greater than the total value of its business, and it ended up being nationalized by the French government. It's nuclear liabilities are a major part of that. Ageing plants in France that need a lot of maintenance to keep going, and new builds that are not going according to plan because they keep finding new flaws in their reactor design.
I don't have a current price for Hinkley Point C, but it was 92GBP/MWh when it was announced in
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That isn't a counterpoint. A project not finished is a date not confirmed, especially in an industry that has shown *EVERY SINGLE WESTERN PROJECT* to suffer multi-year long delays in the last minute.
Flammeville 3 was supposed to go online in 2012, but in 2010 they announced it will be delayed. And in 2012 they announced again, and again, and again. But it should be online sometimes in the middle of this year.
Oh wait no, December 2022 they announced another delay. Maybe next year.
What is "planned" in the nuc
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The first part is where we agree. I am not against renewables, I just find people who want to bet their future, or actually, the future of their kids, on an all-in bet on it. If you read some of my other answers, you will see my current diagnosis of the situation is that low-carbon power sources (nuclear, wind/solar, hydro) are all part of the solution.
The second part of your assertion is where I disagree. We should build nuclear so that it is ready in 10 years, and can replace and extend the current nuclea
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It is part of China's solution. They have built 50 reactors in the last 30 years. It is only not part of our solution because we are apparently incompetent.
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Done during the day? Do you really not understand the moon? There are parts of the moon that is permanently dark. Theres no wind, and because there is no atmosphere, solar light does not scatter. The moon is tidally locked to the earth. Its day is 327 hours and its night is 327hours. You need a reactor to stabilize power even if solar panels provide power. And dont start with battery shit, it costs $92 per gram to lift an object into orbit (some sites claim as little as $30 and as much as $1000; but histor
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The only parts permanently in shade are craters near the poles.
Why would you need power at night if nobody is there? Apart from some automated stuff that can manage with batteries or which will have their own RTGs, you aren't going to be using a lot of power at night. Nobody is going to bother visiting at night, landing in the dark, reliant on electricity for all lighting.
As for cost of lifting mass to the Moon, you don't want to take batteries, but you are fine taking digging equipment large enough to bury
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You should study lunar soil before more conversation. People have dedicated 30+ years to it hoping for another shot at a lunar base. This isnt another flag and footprints. We will be staying for years. 337 hours is a lot of darkness that needs power to run life support systems and other things like the hydroponics bay. Thats half a month without sun and half a month with sun. The core of the moon is not Molten so that rules out geothermal. That leaves reactors of some design. We have been using reactors sin
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What makes you think this reactor is going to be any bigger than an old VW bug?
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Chernobyl type plants have never been build and have always been wildly illegal in every western country.
And yet, Chernobyl, for all it is the End Of Life As We Know It, deaths from Chernobyl are still lower than average Rush Hour DAILY deaths.
Yes, most every day, more people die in traffic than have died as a result of Chernobyl from 1986 to present.
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