Why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors SMRs Are Not a Climate Fix 

SMRs will greatly reduce or eliminate the meltdown risk. Meltdown risk is caused by heat from radioactive decay which will be easier to remove because of the smaller volume to surface ratio.

The leading candidate for SMRs is increasingly looking like the GE Hitachi BWRX-300. The 'BWR' is for boiling water reactor. The 'X' is for tenth generation so it's based on decades of experience. They also have a new containment building technology that will reduce concrete use. There's lots of excitement and customers lining up.

I do agree with most of their points but I disagree with some. Who am I to counter argue against Naomi Oreskes and Mark Jacobson - so take my comments with a grain of salt and remember that I'm in no way being disrespectful towards them even if it seems so. (I'm not a native English speaker so I may sound like that sometimes) The safety problem that large nuclear reactors have can't be solved - the engineer who designed the first of that type (a small one for submarines) was against the large ones precisely because of that. The smaller ones could be made 100% safe and the fact that none has undergone meltdown is a proof of that. I also think we should remember the risk and polution involved in solar and wind sources - the heavy metals used, the accidents, the agricultural land used, the environmental impacts and the long term. SMRs should no be viewed (imho) as a substitute for renewables but as another tool on the set we have to fight climate change. They also forgot - as most people do - that most of the energy consumed goes to industry and those are heavy consumers that can't afford the intermittency of renewables. There's an aluminum factory in Brazil that consumes around 1/6 of what São Paulo city consumes (10 million large), for instance. If that factory gets turned off all their smelting and electrolysis infrasctructure will be rendered useless in few hours. That company in particular consumes over 4TWh each year. They have, fortunately, 8 small hydroelectric power plants that supply half of their demand - and this is a point where SMRs could be very useful: being placed close to cosumers. Loss in the transport of electricity can reach around 25% depending on how distant the sources are. Another point they did not consider is the rest of the world - SMRs may not be suitable for the US but that doesn't mean they would not be suitable for other places. Brazil has exhausted the hydroelectric potential and though renewables have been expanding quickly we have been using more natural gas than we would like to. The only reason our electrical system hasn't collapsed is the economic crisis that's been around for over 10 years and the natural gas power plants. We already mine and enrigh uranium that's exported to France and other western countries so, I think, SMRs would be a great addition to our set of energy sources. I believe South Africa would also like the idea.

From the PNAS paper debunking Mark's work: "... we point out that this work used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions."

Mark did not address the elephant in the room. There is no grid scale storage solution to allow for renewables alone to power the grid 24/7. Also nuclear waste storage is a white elephant; as for the proliferation on US soil... that is just not a consideration. Also ... what is this nonsense about load following with wind and solar (32:30). That deserves a detailed explanation if true. In a normal debate he would have been challenged to explain that statement.

I'm not sure nuclear can be made cheap enough to compete or not but the arguments against present here were weak enough to push me more in the pro nuclear direction.

In the Natrium design, the reactor is simply used to heat a reservoir of molten salt which then can be tapped by steam generators making the whole system fully dispatchable.

Look at all the science deniers assembled here!

The SMR concept has already been tried at scale and failed. At that time, it was not called SMR but the VVER-440 qualifies perfectly to the definition. It is in fact smaller than Rolls-Royce's suggested 470 MWe SMR. They made 40 of them before OKB Gidropress realized that it was more cost efficient to make them 1000 MWe and later 1200 MWe, for obvious reasons that is many of the costs doesn't scale with the size of reactor but with the number of reactors. What makes the nuclear industry think that logic har changed today?

More from the PNAS paper: "...there is a difference between presenting such visions as thought experiments and asserting, as the authors do, that rapid and complete conversion to an almost 100% wind, solar, and hydroelectric power system is feasible with little downside (12). It is important to understand the distinction between physical possibility and feasibility in the real world."

Grids' costs are huge. The Australian Snowy 2, $ 2 billion project has had its grid costs added. Now it is $ 12 billion, and even $ 15 billion is also talked about. 5 times more electricity with no fossil fuels. 5 times more electricity grid capacity. All central electric generation needs the national electrical grid. The national electrical grid is fragile. Because it is incredibly expensive. The existing national electric grid is 100years project, decades and decades and decades. EVs have huge electricity storage. Most vehicles are parked 23hrs every day, 7kwh daily drive leaves massive reserves in millions and millions and millions of vehicles, EVs. Only rooftop solar PV and EV big batteries in the millions and millions and millions DO NOT NEED A FAT NATIONAL ELECTRICITY GRID. The existing national electric grid will be unloaded, protected and perfect. $TRILLIONS and $TRILLIONS saved, taxpayers money. Decades and decades and decades saved. EV battery is free with every vehicle. Rooftop solar PV is cheaper than windows $/m2. The economic advantages are stupendously huge. Central nuclear, distant renewables need massive national grid, national wealth and decades and decades and decades and Government guarantees on cash flows and disaster insurance with nuclear.

It’s a better fix than Solar and wind. SMRs apparently can’t meltdown due to way they are designed. Wind and solar are cheap because they don’t produce much energy, occupy huge amounts of land, need infrastructure like concrete foundations and roads, and need major maintenance every 10-20 years. With growing demand for Data Centres you need something a lot more stable than wind and solar. USA has 10 Nuclear powered carriers.

The 4887.439 tons of spent fuel generated in one year by 10,000 20MW micro reactors can fuel 52 1GW Molten Salt Reactors for 100 years. 940 kg of natural thorium in a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) can generate 1 gigawatt (GW) of electricity for one year. The 37,112 tons of unused depleted uranium processed to obtain the 4888 tons of enriched uranium can fuel 394 1GW Molten Salt Reactors for 100 years.

Wind, solar and batteries require a lot more minerals and metals than nuclear. To scale them up requires a vast expansion of mining and it can take just as long to open a new mine as it does to build a nuclear plant.

Like every sort of generator SMRs have their negatives but those are far fewer than the totally unsuited for grid supply of wind and solar that is so popular. The basic criteria for an economical and stable supply for power grids is:- controllable, has inertia, has reactive power input, can support short circuit level currents. Renewables cannot meet any of those! In addition renewables increase harmonics on the system which is detrimental and their life span is very short. Not only that their performance and hence output deteriorates from the first day of installation. Reasons why renewables are so widely connected are such as pressure from the green lobby groups (who also oppose what actually works, such as nuclear), politicians who believe that they are cheap, when the reality is quite different and is reflected in the very high unit cost to the consumer of grids with large renewable input. The last point is when is someone or some group going to show that CO2 is the main driver of our climate and not natural as has been the case for millenia? Yes, man has made a very small change but it is nowhere like the rhetoric from the U.N. who's ludicrous claim that man is responsible for all of the small amount of warming from a relatively cold time in our history?

NuScale, even with $2 billion in taxpayer welfare and free government land on which to build, and the build in a factory concept, could not make their project cost effective and just canceled it

How come SMRs work in nuclear subs for 65 years without incident? Wind and solar are intermittent so all need back-up power so 2 to 3 times the cost. What about disposal. Wind turbines last 10 years or less? Forget growth 4 billion are without electricity--what about them?

49:30 Large nuclear reactors have a serious problem with water heating - the river after 3 Mile Island would probably be 1 or 2 degrees Celsius higher than before the power plant. AFAIK, SMRs solve that problem.

storage is not needed for solar and wind, in large %s, yet. Compare that to how much storage can ELIMINAT FF burning power plants. We need less than 1% storage for wind and solar now, much less than 1%. But for removing wastage in the grid, with a 60% FF burning, we can remove 25% to 35% of the FF burning with grid efficiencies. Fractal time advantages of electrical based storage, ramp time replacement as Mark touched on, FF burning backup removal, with only optimal efficiency plant operation when possible. This means we only need 2/3 of the wind and solar we think we need to install via storage wastage capture and elimination.

Reducing efficiency ?

...did she say we dont have nuclear aircraft carriers?

5:37 I'm not for liberal economics. I fail to see why more authoritative economic systems cannot be used.

Energy is a very effective taxing mechanism and the largest obstacles to cheap energy is local politics. There is little to explain how on Earth China is about to overtake Canada and soon USA with construction times under 10 years, compared to unbelievably expensive projects in Finland, or UK. The SMR's tried to handle this problem by centralizing the production legislation at source, however the public and ngos are very creative in finding new hurdles and this makes the energy expensive. It is now clear France was correct in their assesment and only more Nuclear Power is now required to electrify

“At least five countries have developed weapons under the guise of nuclear energy programs.” In fact *EVERY* country who has nukes has done this. It is THE ONLY reason countries heap on the billions and billions of dollars to develop and militarily protect their “civilian” nuclear energy programs, which are otherwise the least cost effective and most vulnerable forms of power generation humans have ever devised.

why would you believe any person that work for the government and these people do

Also large nuclear like all power plants, needs backup generator running in case it goes down. this is filled with FF burning power plants.

Nuclear power is the only energy source not required to have full liability insurance. it pays about 1% of the true liability insurance it would have to pay if not waved by the government and absorbed by the citizenries' taxes and risk to health. If it did Nuclear power cost would about double. That means it never would have begun as an industry, dead at beginning, via risk & liability/reward ratio.

Ehy not explore new products to improve the lives of people in general?

SMRs don't address anything as there is no such thing as economies of SMALL scale

Nuclear safe shut downs are a $billions insurance risk. Remove the broken and install the new. Ezi pezi, (sarcasm warnings). 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

I am glad to see you have been reading my posts and have essentially repeated what I have said about carbon neutrality of nuclear being over 30 years, in this webinar.

The complete failure to understand the science or properly do the maths was, at first, distressing. Then I realized that the misrepresentations are deliberate, which is distressing in a different way. The thought that these con artists might influence policy is deeply disheartening.

Sorry to put it this way but this is why a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. This gentleman talks about cement foundations in nuc plants witgout talking about the foundations for windmills. - evidense suggests that wind is much more resource intensive. I would slso add the there is no climate emergency and if a country is a proliferation risk, don't sell them a reactor - build in North Ameruca, Euope and parts if Asia.

Research and development of new prodycts are the keys for a good lofe for the red states only. It takes time to learn things, however with the peayers and the worship snd help of the immaculate heart of Mary, we can slways adk for more jnowledge about new things thst we can develop. It is not mesnt to get rich on such things, it only means yhat those invrntions are supposed to be shared by good golks that will be willing to sharetheir blessings also. Itwill be fone eithin the oarameters of the Divine Will of our Lord Jesus Christ worship and glory. It is mesnt to reverse rhe current trend of rich folks making others poor in order to get rich quick, itus the reverse, it is helping other folks have a dignified lives in order that they can be profuctive and happy worshipping our lord Jesus Christ eternally.