First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

Technology@lemmy.world – 1568 points – 11 months ago

First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

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You could probably fit all of the nuclear waste America produces in few trucks. It's not as much as people think.

Or even less if we -- gasp, shock, horror! -- reprocessed it.

(We don't do that because of overblown fears about nuclear weapons proliferation.)

The Department estimates that continued operation of the current fleet of nuclear power reactors could ~70,000 metric tons of uranium * increase the total inventory of spent fuel from 70,000 metric tons of uranium to 140,000 metric tons of uranium. Nearly all of this spent fuel is being stored at the reactor sites where it was generated, either submerged in pools of water (wet storage) or in shielded casks (dry storage). The Dept of Energy

Those must be some big fucking trucks. And as far as I know, only Finland has actually developed any long-term storage which could be considered safe.

Nuclear is fine, but nuclear fanboi takes are similar to weed fanbois, it's not a perfect solution.

You seem to think a big number means a big pile of green goo. But actually...

All of the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since the late 1950s would cover a whole football field to a height of approximately 10 yards.

Here is the entire volume of high-level, long-lived waste that France needs to store over the long term for 80 years of nuclear power (with 70%+ nuclear power in its electricity mix).

The question of nuclear waste, hammered home by the anti-nuclear crowd, has long since been answered. And the answer is: it's far from being a problem.

As for the cost of storage and decommissioning, it makes no sense if we do not give a financial order of magnitude.

At French current electricity price, a 915MW reactor will produce 1.1 billion euros of electricity over one year. A 1500MW reactor will produce 1.8 billion euros of electricity over one year.

When you sell 60 billions of euros worth of electricity per year for 60 years, even if you pay 50 billions for storage and 2 billions to decommission an entire plant, it's still quite profitable.