Small Modular Reactor

Works for me.
Just remember you have to pay for the security det.....

 

Small nuke reactors are not small at all when you do true cost accounting on low level and high level nuke waste management for its entire lifespan. Most of these hairbrained schemes are about pocketing the money up front and then having an easy out when cost over runs cause the project to fail before it even gets started.

 

the beginning of the end

 

470 MWe (electric) isn't really "small". Other sources describe SMRs as 300 MWe or less.

... unless they mean MW-thermal.

 

The thermal output is 1358MW. https://www.rolls-royce-smr.com/

I've seen the 300mW figure, but guessing it isn't a hard limit. The important tribute of being a SMR is in the physical size. Small enough to make the reactor in a factory, and then ship to the power plant. Granted, the transport for bigger ones will be more extreme, but the costs just have to not exceed the central production savings.

By virtue of the smaller core size, these might make more waste through the higher neutrino leakage.
[UPDATED] Researchers Say SMRs Will Produce More Waste Than Large Nuclear Reactors, NuScale Disputes Claim
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2111833119
Haven't read the paper, but it may not be considering how the running of a SMR will differ from a typical nuclear plant. They are like batteries; some can't be refueled. The SMR is installed in an underground vault and coolant lines connected to the power plant. 30 years goes by and plant no longer is producing enough heat. Then the vault is sealed, and you dig a hole for a new SMR, or convert the plant to hydrogen or other renewable fuel that has become available.

The important thing is that the nuclear waste disposal was already factored in with the installation. There is more nuclear waste, but it doesn't need to be hauled away to another site with those concerns.

 

That's entirely absurd to say... Coal ash doesn't turn everything it touches into low level nuclear waste that is very, very difficult to dispose of, with the actual nuclear waste being way harder.

 

I had long thought that an important element was being small enough to allow passive cooling in emergencies.

I hope you mean neutrons, which are input elements of the chain reactions. Neutrinos are nearly entirely lost even in reactors the size of the sun. They are not meaningful inputs to anything except neutrino detectors, which capture only an exceedingly minuscule fraction of the neutrinos passing through them.

 

In terms of the nasty stuff, spent fuel and high level waste, the US produces about 2000 metric tons a year. That is 3% of the total annual amount. 95% is low level waste, which includes non energy industry generation. We could reduce spent fuel waste through recycling.

Coal ash doesn't turn stuff it touches into coal ash, but we do produce much, much, much more of it at 130 million tons per year. It is laced with heavy metals and radioisotopes. Shorter half lives, but again, 130 million tons per year. A person receives a higher radiation dose living next to a coal plant than next to a nuclear one.

On a related note, used fracking brine is radio active and unregulated on that front. Some was being sold as ice melt. People were putting radium laced salt water on their side walks.

That too, but I believe passive cooling is being built into even the MW reactors these days. Some SMR designs are just scaled down versions of those.

I did. Sounds like it is a surface area to volume issue. More neutrons can 'leak' out of a smaller core.

 

We will all soon agree on nuke waste and radioactive fracking fluids having no place in our future when fusion replaces fission.

 

Cheap fusion power has been "20 years away" for what, 60 years now? 70? It is still far too early to hold my breath for it.

Fusion reactors will also make nuclear waste, albeit less. The containment vessels will experience neutron irradiation, turning them radioactive.

 

The neutron irradiation is what "turn everything it touches into low level nuclear waste that is very, very difficult to dispose of" and makes most of the waste from a fission plant.

 

We're far closer than you think with current record of human made fusion at WEST tokamak (formerly Tore Supra in France) sustained for 22 minutes 17 seconds.

As for the radiation many fusion designs use deuterium-tritium (D–T) fuel. Tritium is radioactive (beta emitter), with a half-life of only about 12.3 years https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/19/09/harnessing-energy-from-nuclear-fusion.pdf

And to your point, when high-energy neutrons from fusion hit the reactor’s structural materials (walls, support structures, shielding, etc.), they can convert stable isotopes in those materials into radioactive ones — a process called neutron activation. The resulting waste is expected to be low to intermediate, not like the high-level, long-lived waste from fission: Safety and the environment

 

That type has not yet reached breakeven on a scientific basis, let alone engineering or economic basis.

 

The long lived, high energy waste from a nuclear reactor is spent fuel. That is only a tiny bit of the waste generated. The rest is low to intermediate created by...neutron activation.

In terms annual waste produced, from all sources, high level makes up just 3%. Low level is 95%. A switch to fusion will only make a tiny change in the waste produced.

 

Not only do you not understand 1/2 life as well as the difference from fusion waste versus waste from fission, you're also wrong about nuke plants not having much waste when the entire containment structure and the cooling system of a nuclear power is nuclear waste, including the water and all the pipes is radioactive at the end of it lifespan.

Just to safely dismantle the nuke plant at San Onofre it's costing $4.4 billion and two decades of full time work. That's straight up unsustainable insanity and you're pretending like that's not too big of a mess and providing zero references to back up your claim?

Specifically, this is why it costs $4.4 Billion to decommission just one of the 440 nuke reactors in the world and each point is referenced:

Key Reasons Why Decommissioning Nuclear Plants Is So Costly

1. Radioactive Waste Management
   • After shutdown, you have spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive materials that must be handled very carefully. You can’t just tear everything down like a conventional power plant. Nuclear Regulatory Commission+2World Nuclear Association+2
     
     
   • Managing, packaging, storing, and eventually disposing (or repurposing) that radioactivity costs a lot. IAEA+1
     
     
   • The longer you wait, some radioactive isotopes decay, but you also incur storage and security costs during that waiting period. World Nuclear Association+1
2. Dismantling Very Large, Complex Infrastructure
   • Reactor buildings, steel structures, concrete shielding, pipes, and machinery — all of it is big, heavy, and often contaminated with radioactivity. World Nuclear Association+1
     
     
   • Some of these parts are “activated” (i.e., become radioactive) because they were exposed to neutrons during operation, so they require special handling. IAEA+2World Nuclear Association+2
     
     
   • Disposal of contaminated materials often requires transport to specialized facilities, which is expensive.
3. Regulatory and Safety Requirements
   • Even after shutdown, plants must meet strict regulatory standards (e.g., security, emergency preparedness) until they’re fully decommissioned. Nuclear Energy Institute+1
     
     
   • The process to “downgrade” a plant’s license (from operating to shutdown) and get regulatory approvals (exemptions, license amendments) is time-consuming and expensive. Nuclear Energy Institute
     
     
   • Environmental monitoring is required during decommissioning to make sure there are no harmful releases. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
4. Labor & Personnel Costs
   • Skilled labor is required for decontamination, dismantling, and waste handling.
     
     
   • There are severance costs, ongoing staffing, and possibly specialized contractors. For instance, in some California cases, severance was explicitly called out. California Public Utilities Commission
5. Site Restoration / Land Reclamation
   • After decommissioning, the goal is often to restore the site “to a condition that presents no radiological risk” so it can be released for other uses. California Public Utilities Commission+1
     
     
   • Depending on the site, there may be significant restoration costs: contaminated soil, concrete, and buried structures must be cleaned or removed.
6. Long Time Frames
   • Decommissioning isn’t quick. According to the IAEA, it often takes 15–20 years or more. IAEA
     
     
   • Longer projects mean more labor, more oversight, and more cost escalation over time (inflation, changing regulations, maintenance while idle).
7. Financial Assurance & Trust Funds
   • Operators are required (by regulators) to set aside money over the lifetime of the plant into decommissioning trust funds. Nuclear Regulatory Commission+1
     
     
   • Estimating exactly how much is enough is tricky. There’s risk: under-estimating future costs (waste burial, labor, demolition) can lead to shortfalls.
8. Spent Fuel Storage
   • Even after decommissioning, spent fuel often stays on site (in dry casks) for many years because permanent disposal sites are limited. CBS News
     
     
   • Maintaining, monitoring, and securing that spent fuel is a continuous cost.

 

Won't fusion plants also face at least 6 of those 8 items?

If fusion doesn't become reality relatively soon, or doesn't work out as well as hyped, then we'll still need fission for a while. One of the causes of fission's volume of high-level waste is President Carter's 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, which banned the reprocessing of spent fuel. Our just-once-through policy wastes the great majority of the fuel potential, and greatly increases the amount of high level waste.

Haven't other paths been indentified to reprocess spent fuels without the risk of proliferating nuclear weapons?