Pebble bed reactors are the key to new nuclear plants.

They can't explode like Chernobyl, it's impossible, and if they lose coolant, as at Three Mile Island, there won't be a core meltdown.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at April 10, 2006 11:01 AM

Michael:

I wonder if pebble-beds have been overhyped, though; the safety record on existing US plants is good enough to make me dubious that moving to an entirely different design, however better in theory, is wise.

I think (and you won't read this here often!) that the French have it right: their plants are similar to ours, but are all essentially identical. This makes training/staffing easier, and means most problems can be found once and fixed everywhere, rather than each plant having its own unique teething problems.

I understand the need for employment in small towns, and I certainly understand the need for more sustainable energy development (rather than reliance on fossil fuels. It seems to me, that many small nuclear power plants (although it would address the first issue) is not the best way to address the second. I'm wondering if, in the spirit of the Hoover dam, a large single facility with a whole lot of government subsidy would be the safest, most effective way to bring a whole lot of energy to the grid. Centralization of nuclear power generation would bring a lot of safety issues regarding operations and waste under an easily controlled environment, and if this central facility is near the centralized nuclear waste facility that's already planned, security and safety with waste transport would be easier too. Water is an issue in Nevada, of course, but with plenty of electricity, something could be worked out.

Sure, some will complain that this is government interfering in "free-market" energy production, but it's never been a self-sustaining free-market system anyway. And there are plenty of examples of government projects in this business. Additionally, there is, of course, the whole national-security argument for government involvement in the creation of electricity and the safety and security of nuclear facilities.

You bet, government involvement and centralization always work so well....

oj, nice reflexes, but think a second...

Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover dam, etc.

Those work great.

OJ, in addition, I'm sure there are many projects like the aborted Midland, MI, nuclear plant that was half-built by Consumers' Power. This was a very expensive, poorly planned project that was just as subsidized as the Hoover dam, but relied on a hare-brained idea by a CEO.

Two main challenges:

1. Efficient transmission of electricity around the country.

2. Attracting talent to the site (Nevada, I guess).

TVA was a disaster.

oj, in what universe was the TVA a disaster?

Excuse me, what I meant to say was, "I don't understand why you think that."

It destroyed an organic way of life in order to impose a utopian vision and ended up encouraging people to stay in an economically backwards region they should have been fleeing--nevermind the cost/benefit.

Bill:

Yes, the capacity to fail miserably is vital.

Google "Andrews County nuclear plant", "Andrews County nuclear waste" and "Eunice Nerw Mexico nuclear fuel" if you really want to see an adjacent two-state area normally associated with oil and gas drilling that's jumping into nuclear power and related activities as a way to improve its economy.

oj, the TVA didn't destroy an organic way of life, nor did it impose anyone's utopian vision. In spite of your interest in all of us "failing miserably", I think the idea of being able to produce copious electricity safely is worth the risk of potentially inducing some form of societal upheaval.

It seems inherent to your argument against the TVA (and by extension other government products) that you see government "interference" as a way that freedoms (such as the ability to live "organically") are limited. I suggest that you can also look at these projects as ways that freedoms are enabled. Furthermore, considering that this is a government of the people, you could also look at a government program as the public's program, and therefore you could see this as a way our system of governing has enabled us to respond to our will.

All that aside, my interest in this project is not ideological. It's practical, i.e. could it work scientifically, economically, politically.

We are going to need to meet some serious energy (and water) needs in the coming century, this is one idea for how to approach this issue.

Bill:

It displaced people in numbers only ethnic cleansing usually achieves. Destroying the way of life that had arisen organically and tried superimposing bureaucratic visions of what life should be like instead. You'll not that development in the TVA region was subsequently retarded by comparison to surrounding areas, not accelerated.

WHOOPS!

I've got an even better idea. Lets build a giant basket, and put it somewhere in the desert. Then, we gather up every single egg in the nation, and put them all in the basket. It will be brilliant!

Bill: generally speaking, large centralized plants trade off the benefit of economy of scale in generation against the loss from transmitting lots of power long distances, which is considerable. In this day and age you need to factor in the threat to attacks on the electricity grid as well -- the more distributed your generation the less vulnerable the grid. Google "high energy transformers" to get an idea of how vulnerable the current setup is. Hydro power is by its nature highly centralized -- there are relatively few locations where you can put large hydro projects, so it makes sense to maximize them. One of the interesting things about the pebble-ed design is that it scales down well. Here's a Wired article that talks about the Chinese HT-10 (high temperature,10-megawatt) design.

Except even hydro power is nowhere near as centralized as Bill's idea. Sure, you've got a few major Dams like Hoover & Grand Coulee, but there are literally dozens of smaller ones here and there, not only in the TVA area, but along the Columbia, the Snake and probably lots of other places I'm unfamiliar with. I have no idea what the percentage of hydro-power produced by these smaller locations is, but I'm fairly confident it's significant. It might be better to say that hydropower is, by its nature, moderately centralized. There aren't very many locations, but you can only get so much juice from a single location. Nuclear power can be centralized far more than hydropower--but it can also be dispersed far more. For the reasons you note, dispersal seems to make more sense at least from a technical/financial perspective.