Ever wondered, hey, what's the deal with nuclear power? Come listen as @JigarShahDC and I answer that question at length: volts.wtf/p/nuclear-perh…
Responses on the first few minutes. (I'm one of the people Dave was talking about who would respond anytime he even writes the word "nuclear.") 1. It may be true that the US nuclear industry needs improvement in building new nuclear plants, but it is a complete mischaracterization to state that the industry is a "dumpster fire." If it was, how could it sustain a fleet average capacity factors of 90% or more for two solid decades? That's equivalent to operating all plants for 7960 hours per year at 100% power. And they do this under intense scrutiny with at least two full time regulators working at each plant site. With less than 7% of US electricity generating capacity, nuclear plants produced 18.9% of our electricity last year. Bottom line - the US is really good at operating nuclear plants because we have been practicing and refining our skills in that area for almost 70 years. 2. Though there are many differences in US plants outside of the cores, there is a lot of standardization inside the cores. There are only a few reactor fuel assembly options available today, with the majority being either 17 x 17 bundles of ~4.3 M long fuel rods (PWR) or 9 x 9 bundles of essentially the same kind of fuel rods (BWR). Rated power output is what determines the number of fuel assemblies in a core. Until very recently, all of the rods were zirconium alloy tubes containing a stack of low enriched uranium dioxide with some variations on the actual enrichment level. 3. Many of the variations between plants were forced upon the vendors and their customers as a result of changing regulations that required additional systems, structures and components. (AFAIK, there were no regulatory changes that reduced the number of required systems, structures or components. That's why some of us call it a "regulatory ratchet.")
@drvolts @JigarShahDC Podcast was quite optimistic on getting the future costs down in the USA from learning curve. Amazing how bespoke US nuclear reactors have been historically with almost zero learning curve. Market & regulatory failure compared to other countries efforts?
@drvolts @JigarShahDC This was very informative! And I didn’t get angry once
@drvolts @JigarShahDC What are ur thoughts on nuclear historian stephanie cooke describing nuclear as a fig leaf for the nuclear weapons industry? Serious question im asking you both. open.spotify.com/episode/5wCZDb…
@drvolts @JigarShahDC An unexpeced rosy path for nuclear! Wish there were some «push-back» on: -demand flexibility vs. «Baseload» -climate resilience of nuclear -fuel supply and storage -weapon proliferation -first new reactors by the time VRE already has (hopefully) a significant penetration
@drvolts @JigarShahDC Great episode! Answers a lot of questions