Bartholomew Gallacher
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2018
- Messages
- 4,940
- SL Rez
- 2002
The plain and simple truth is that building new nuclear power plants is no longer economically feasible, until you are willing to sacrifice much of todays' safety standards.
And the original reactors where designed with submarines in mind; most of that work was being done by Alwin M. Weinberg in Oak Ridge Laboritories under a naval program being run by Hyman Rickover.
Also many of the "new ideas" date back to Weinberg, just like the molten fluor salt reactor, while others like the "traveling wave reactor" only work in theory so far, and there still need prototypes to be built.
Just look for example at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, an EPR three reactor design. The Finnish people want nuclear power. Construction started in 2005, building time more than tripled: it was scheduled to go online 2009, now they are planning for 2020. And spent twice the money which was the originally budget at last.
Flamanville 3 in France, same design, same story.
Hinkley Point C in the UK, not such a big success story either so far.
Most countries world wide just quitted constructing nuclear power plants altogether; the major ones which are still keen on getting new ones are countries with nuclear weapons in their weapons arsenal.
And the original reactors where designed with submarines in mind; most of that work was being done by Alwin M. Weinberg in Oak Ridge Laboritories under a naval program being run by Hyman Rickover.
Also many of the "new ideas" date back to Weinberg, just like the molten fluor salt reactor, while others like the "traveling wave reactor" only work in theory so far, and there still need prototypes to be built.
Just look for example at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, an EPR three reactor design. The Finnish people want nuclear power. Construction started in 2005, building time more than tripled: it was scheduled to go online 2009, now they are planning for 2020. And spent twice the money which was the originally budget at last.
Flamanville 3 in France, same design, same story.
Hinkley Point C in the UK, not such a big success story either so far.
Most countries world wide just quitted constructing nuclear power plants altogether; the major ones which are still keen on getting new ones are countries with nuclear weapons in their weapons arsenal.
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