First U.S. Small Nuclear Reactor Design Is Approved

Kieppie said:
This is still far off. Once a rocket is safe enough for passengers it's more than safe enough for payload. Also an exploding rocket won't destroy the payload and disperse an radioactive cloud. At worst the payload part will land somewhere. The design of the custom payload delivery system should easily cater for this risk

How economical it will be is another matter as there are over 400000t of it at the moment. Luckily newer reactors are more efficient, but that is still a heck of a lot of launches needed. The Falcon heavy has just over 55t payload.
Click to expand...
Rail gun. :ROFL:
 
Kieppie said:
You forgot to factor in for land usuage.

"A nuclear energy facility has a small area footprint, requiring about 1.3 square miles per 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity. This figure is based on the median land area of the 59 nuclear plant sites in the United States. In addition, nuclear energy facilities have an average capacity factor of 90 percent, much higher than intermittent sources like wind and solar.

By contrast, wind farm capacity factors range from 32 to 47 percent, depending on differences in wind resources in a given area and improvements in turbine technology. Solar PV capacity factors also vary based on location and technology, from 17 to 28 percent.

Taking these factors into account, a wind farm would need an installed capacity between 1,900 megawatts and 2,800 MW to generate the same amount of electricity in a year as a 1,000-MW nuclear energy facility. Such a facility would require between 260 square miles and 360 square miles of land." NEI

Also the seasonality makes both solar and wind impracticable in much of the world. More being built will also decrease the cost just like it did for solar and wind generation as well as improve research. Current technology in storage is a extremely limiting factor. Hopefully new research in industrial sized batteries can change that, but recycling batteries and PV remains a big issue.

As a side note investing in Nuclear is also better for future tech. I doubt we'll have spaceships powered by Solar or wind, but we will most likely by a derivative of nuclear.
Click to expand...
Land use is minimal for wind and solar you can farm underneath especially with grazing animals, wind farms can even go in the ocean.

There's no reason not to do both renewables and nuclear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X