9 thoughts on “A Nuclear Reactor”

  3. Looking at this link on a price breakdown on power costs.

    $1,160 for 8.9 kg of unenriched U3O8 at $130/kg
    $83 for conversion of that to pure unenriched uranium
    $880 for enrichment
    $240 for fabricating the fuel rod
    ——
    $2,360 per kg

    Another chart of the cost of unenriched U3O8 shows that at $130/kg (as in the above) represents 1 cent/kWh of electricity costs, whereas free U3O8 would still result in fuel costs of about 0.4 cents per kWh.

    Currently U3O8 is selling at about $89/kg, which means U3O8 costs ($792) are about at parity with enrichment costs.

    But we might be able to drastically cut the $880/kg cost of enrichment by switching to SILEX (Seperation of isotopes by laser excitation), a technology developed in Australia and being tested by GE in Wilmington, North Carolina for use in commercial-scale enrichment, along with another facility in Paducah KY.

    And if you were using the uranium in a molten salt reactor, the $240/kg fuel fabrication costs pretty much disappear.

    So assuming SILEX cuts the enrichment cocst in half, U3O8 prices remain about where they are, and fuel rod fabrication is dispensed with, fuel costs drop to 0.55 cents per kWh (down from about 0.85 cents at present). Then if you use this initial fuel to boostrap into a thorium fuel cycle, your fuel costs pretty much disappear to a small fraction of a cent per kWh, which should give you an actual production cost of about 1.6 cents per kWh, dropping to about a penny after the full switch to thorium.

    But that still leaves 4 to 6 cents per kWh to pay for the plant, so dropping that expense by 40 percent or more makes a bigger dent than lowering the fuel cost. Combined, both transitions should get nuclear down to the 3 to 4 cent/kWh range, and coal probably couldn’t match it even if their efficiency is pushed past 50%. Wind and solar would be even less competitive.

    1. Two approaches for cutting the actual plant costs:

      1) Make the core a floating barge.
      2) Now that a laundry list of other issues (geology, environmental impact), are made distinct from the actual core, do a whole lot more standardizing.

      At least, as far as I can tell a significant slice of plant costs is finding, evaluating, re-evaluating, and analyzing-to-death the site for earthquakes and environmental suits.

      Floating it all should really fix the -analysis- difficulties. Yes, the construction cost increases. But it does also have the advantage of readily available inspections on all sides that even the wildest environmentals should be able to accept.

    2. The new SILEX plants have to go through tons of geology and environmental impact studies, and they’re just exciting gases with laser beams. O_o

      Barges do present a lot of advantages, but I’m not sure liberals would ever be convinced that they’re a good idea, and site security might be much more difficult (DHS might shoot down such proposals). Of course, we are talking about realms where logic doesn’t apply.

      I think molten salt is the cheapest route, since it’s intrinsically safer and doesn’t require a high-pressure reactor vessel. I also find some of the gas core reactor designs intriguing, especially for space applications.

      1. Well, I’m thinking ‘barge in man-made lake’ really. So not an indefensible spot like on a river. Cost: Higher. But it shouldn’t be a net security negative.

        I’m a fan of the thorium reactors, but I do think pretty much anything should be pretty competitive with nothing more than a sane regulatory framework. Being able to allow inspections by your worst detractors pretty much at-will on the bottom of the facility should be mighty useful in driving suit costs down.

        The second approach (in the event of too many Luddites) is declare them all reserve aircraft carriers, order the DoD to sign off and send the lawsuits straight to /dev/null.

        1. The navy has quite a few floating nuclear reactors and they are well guarded. It shouldn’t be a problem to park a few commercial barges in the same area, at least for coastal cities.

  4. I found the linked article on the challenges facing cellulosic ethanol more intriguing. It asserts that there isn’t enough demand for ethanol to support them. Whoever wrote that has never visited my town, where every day is St. Patrick’s Day.

  5. “Using helium as a coolant instead of water allows the plant to operate at higher temperatures, and the reactor also incorporates a new gas turbine for producing electricity. Thanks to these changes, the technology can generate more power from a given amount of heat produced in the reactor core. While conventional reactors convert 32 percent of the energy in heat to electricity, this one is expected to convert 53 percent.”

    I was wondering if it makes He-4?

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