Re small package nuclear designs

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Paper_Reactors.2C_Real_Reactors_.281953.29

Admiral Hyman Rickover said in 1953
"An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now."

"On the other hand a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated."

Touche, Warmair.

I think we are approaching a point where a decision will be imperative.
If our peak demand is around 30 Gwatt we will need to build x number
of nuclear power stations by the time coal production has declined to
the point it is no longer economic to run coal fired power stations.
With peak coal around 2025, we would need the first nuclear to be on
line about that time, then as coal production decreased, we would
need to install a replacement of one coal fired station at a time.

How long will it take to build and commission one nuclear station ?
I have seen figures like five to twenty years.
I presume that the first ones will take longer.
Would it be possible to convert coal fired to nuclear, that would save
some money.

Can you see the problem I am pointing out ?
We need to start now on building the first replacement power station.
That will enable us to train the engineers and operation people to
run these plants. A new industry like this takes years to crank up.

As I pointed out, if we do not take steps to keep our electrical
energy production up we have no choice but to start diverting people
leaving school into agricultural courses.

Whether the plants are hot rocks geothermal or nuclear does not affect
the argument but we do have to start NOW !

There are some experienced power station people on here, I would like
to hear their comment on this proposal.

Bazz, the French converted to 50% nuclear power in a couple of decades, eventually topping 70% nationally.

We could do the same.

By the way, direct conversion from coal to nuclear isn't a proposition - the turbines (for example) operate at much different pressures. Everything in the steam side of things would have to be new. Besides which, who in his right mind would put new steam sources into a 40-year old power station that was initially designed to last 25 years?

However, "brownfield" sites, ie those where coal plant have been or will be demolished are a different proposition - land, water supplies (roughly the same amount of cooling is needed per GWh of each), skilled and unskilled labour, contractors, switchyards, transmission lines are all in place. That amounts to well over half of the total system cost, as against greenfield sites.

I'd prefer, from a safety and environment point of view, for the two coal fired power stations near where I live to be replaced on the same sites by nuclear powered ones.

That's the first 5GW for you. 25GW to go.

I don't know why anyone one would even contemplate building a nuclear power station in Australia.

1 There is a huge disconnect between the actual costs and figures quoted by the nuclear industry. Nuclear power is in reality about the most expensive way anyone has yet come up with to generate electric power. To put this in perspective of all the nuclear power stations actually started only half have actually made it all the way to producing power. Of those a number have subsequently been shut down as thy were determined not to be safe and others have been shut down due to political pressure.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/The_Real_Cost_of_Nuclear_Power.php

2 In terms of reducing Co2 emissions they are better than fossil fuel stations but are a long way form being emission free.

3 Very few people want either the power station or the waste in their back yard, look at the battle that we are having just to find somewhere to put our low level radioactive medical wastes.

4 No commercial organisation will fully insure them so it is left up governments to take the major risk look at Japan for example. The Cost of the Fukushima clean up is expected to up to 420 billion yen ?

6 They take a long time to plan and build when everything goes perfectly maybe 7 years but there are examples where it has taken over 30 years to complete. In Australia it is doubtful that we have the necessary skills to build one.

7 Nuclear decommissioning of old plants takes decades and is pretty much a gamble as to how much it is going to cost. It is not fair to expect future generations to pay the costs of cleaning up the old plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning

Warmair chooses to live in a world where he gets to choose his own facts.

Sorry, Warmair - there's no point in further discourse unless he first decides to come back to Earth.

I'm out of here.