OK Rhosty, your last calculation seems near the mark.

If 50MW reactors are too small then roof top solar panels must be net negative contributors to energy production, maybe its the Pixie dust that makes solar panels worth while.

I would think distributed, smallish but capable 50MW reactors would to a degree mimic the internet; that is have emergent fault tolerance that would add robustness to a core of massive base load units.

‘morning David,

I’ve followed this thread with interest in the hope that someone might raise the BGO moment.

Surely the R&D issue should have been BEFORE the world rushed into renewables and not AFTER they failed?

There are so many technical calculations, engineering principles and alternative solutions being offered here, for what? Are we trying to retrospectively “shoehorn” even more non “market ready” solutions into an already failed market mix?

Let me put it another way, would we be having this conversation if the renewables we forced into our energy economy were economically viable in the first place? Why are so many posters still trying to force this economically failed technology?

The vast majority of the economic impost on the developed world has already fallen on the consumer. We carry the burden of energy surcharge and our taxes have been paid out as “subsidies and loan guarantees” by governments for renewables consortiums, wealthy landowners to host wind farms, renewables industries, paid “research” into CAGW, failed emissions trading markets and spinning backup for renewables. We have already seen 800 million Euro’s sucked out of the EU economy alone since 2008.

What could have been produced if this level of funding had been spent on R&D before any response to CAGW was implemented instead of after?

The “deadlock” to which you refer is not a deadlock at all. It is a last ditch attempt to suck even more funds out of our governments without acknowledging that the cart was before the horse in the first place.

What remains of this back to front creation? The global renewables industry index RENNIX, collapsed in March 2013, the Emissions Trading markets have either closed or collapsed, governments are withdrawing subsidies and tariffs and there is still no Kyoto replacement.

And now we are being asked to fund research into failed renewables to compete with a glut of fossil fuels?

There is something mind-blowingly crass about such jaundiced thinking!

Fortunately, the USA, China, India and Russia will never participate in such manic economics and Kyoto can rest in peace

Peter Lang

I am interested in your views on the need for government funding of nuclear R&D.

Do you think that the reactors currently being built could compete in many places with fossil if the government simply removed unnecessary impediments?

Also under these favorable conditions do you think private industry would be willing to do all the research, development, demonstration and initial deployment needed for the more advanced types of reactors?

We will find a new, better & cheaper source of energy. Of course we will.

Like all major discoveries before, it will come out of left field, imagined & developed by a individuals, or companies. Governments & academics will only come in later, often dragged kicking & screaming, after the fact.

For gods sake lets stop wasting taxpayer funds by giving them to academics to play with. If they had any imagination, they would not be academics.

A scenario. Government wanted a new mode of transport & threw millions at academics in the mid 19Th century. What would they have got. Something using steam, or a different way of using a horse.

It took some kooks who liked playing with dirty smelly bits of iron to come up with an internal combustion engine, & the motor car.

It took a couple of ratbag bicycle mechanics to come up with an aircraft.

Same today, get our money out of university research, & build roads railways & airports with it. Let private industry come up with a profitable economic new power source.

Hi David McMullen

A great article - and your comment above is well aimed. Nuclear power companies are well known to talk-up any gains or profits while more quietly relying on governments and taxpayers to pay for the research, losses, accidents and inevitable decommisioning of reactors.
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@McCackie

Its a total myth that small 50 MW reactors might in some way be easier or have some economies of scale compared to standard 1000 MW reactors.

Installation of any reactor in Australia would be a major political, social, environmental impact and security risk process that would take 10-30 years of scoping, planning and building. All this means it would make more sense to build a large-standard reactor because all the endless hurdles and considerations would be repeated for each of any small ones.

In any case its all academic. No serious Prime Minister, Premier or Mayor would dare declare that an actual reactor would be built anywhere near their electorate.

This is one reason why the the Russians have been proposing floating (on the sea) reactors for decades - in which case potential disasters might come from tsunamis, pirates, terrorists, accidents, cyclones, ship collisions etc.

You name it - reactors blow up rarely - but when they do, like Fukushima, its a huge societal $100 Billion problem for a whole country.

Like Peter Lang, Dream on.