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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain
Rolls-Royce plans to build up to 15 mini nuclear reactors in Britain
https://newatlas.com/energy/rolls-royce-plans-mini-nuclear-reactors-in-britain/
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Each power station is projected to have a service life of 60 years and generate 440 MW of electricity, or enough to power a city the size of Leeds. The estimated cost of the electricity generated is £60 (US$78) per MWh.
"Our plan is to get energy on the grid in 2029," Prescott told the BBC. "The obvious sites to put them are what we call brown-field sites sites where we're running elderly or decommissioned nuclear power stations. There are two sites in Wales and one in the northwest of England. Eventually in the UK, well be rolling out 10 to 15. We're also looking to a significant export market. In fact, the current estimate for the export market for SMRs is £250 billion, so this could be a huge industry."
According to a previous press release from Rolls-Royce, the British government has already promised £18 million in matching funds, or about half the present costs of the endeavor, with the consortium partners providing the rest. Prescott says that the advantage of the Rolls-Royce plan is that it doesn't involve building a whole new reactor, as other companies have tried to do, but rather to adapt a present design. In addition, the reactors will be built along manufacturing lines rather than civil construction, which the company claims will drive down costs rather than inflating them.
Not a green energy like wind or solar but these can be very safe and remove a lot of dependence upon fossil fuels
I remember several years ago articles floating around about GE and plans for neighborhood-sized reactors. These are a bit bigger but well see how they do I guess
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)What shall we do with the waste? Maybe there's still room in Sierra Blanca Nuclear Waste site.
Cicada
(4,533 posts)I have seen encouraging reports about possible ways to decontaminate nuclear waste. Maybe we can find a solution. Dirty air kills many millions every year. I have changed from opposing nuclear power to reluctantly supporting it.
uponit7771
(91,317 posts)Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)I guess. I'd like to see them smaller, and with built-in automatic waste containment.
CentralMass
(15,447 posts)BSdetect
(9,046 posts)Roland99
(53,345 posts)1 1/2 years vs decades
Decommissioning would likely be much less intensive too
BSdetect
(9,046 posts)And those rarely ever are accurate.
Just curious if the estimated cost
I assume they learned from the past.
TheBlackAdder
(28,800 posts)hunter
(38,809 posts)1. We can abandon the high energy industrial consumer economy many affluent people now enjoy.
Unfortunately an economy powered entirely by "renewable" energy might not be able to support seven and a half billion people.
(Gently reducing the human population is another problem... so far it seems the only way to do it is by empowering women and improving living standards.)
2. We can ignore global warming, continue to use fossil fuels, and hope for the best as the oceans rise, bad weather gets worse, and the familiar natural environment and world economy collapses around us.
3. Or we can build modern nuclear power plants and maintain the sorts of government institutions required to run them safely.
It's absurd to argue about "nuclear waste" when we are already dumping so much fossil fuel waste into our air and water, some of it radioactive, some of it containing toxins that have a half life of forever, and all of it releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
The only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels.
There's enough fossil fuel in the ground to destroy the earth's environment as we know it. It doesn't matter how fast or how slow we burn it, it doesn't matter how many wind turbines or solar panels we build if we are using fossil fuels as "backup power" whenever the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. The end result of burning fossil fuels fast or slow is the same, and it is grim.