[nnq]

    > Neighboring lines trip
    > As a last step you turn on your nuclear plants

...don't get it: why would you turn off your nuclear power plants, even if the grid failed?!

Won't it make more sense to keep it running as usual maybe just using the power to generate steam that you throw into the atmosphere? ...mainly because stopping and restarting a nuclear power plant is expensive af.?

(It still boggles my mind why are electric grids so focused on efficiency at the cost of resiliency... with abundant nuclear + hydro you could easily over-produce a bit, I'm 99% sure that making electricity dirt cheap for consumers by gov controlled over-production would help fight climate change even if it appears wasteful: there will be huge incentive to replace petrol burning trucks, buses, cars etc. when electricity it dirt cheap... and then prices can be gradually ramped up after everyone made the conversion.)

[pjc50]

I'm not an expert, but there's an interesting discussion on Quora: https://www.quora.com/Can-an-American-nuclear-power-plant-bl...

The key factors seem to be:

1) the plant must be capable of running as an island. It seems not all of them are; I suspect the problem is the plant consuming a variable amount of self-power e.g. 1MW being connected to a 100MW generator results in a very unstable system.

2) whatever safety event causes the problem must not trip at the generators themselves but disconnect the plant cleanly from the grid. Since these events are by definition exceptional, this may be very hard to avoid.

> with abundant nuclear + hydro you could easily over-produce a bit

Both of these are exorbitantly expensive to build, and hydro requires specific geology.

[snowwindwaves]

Most of the plants I've worked on can't island themselves by design. It costs more to do it and sometimes requires additional or more expensive equipment, more attention to details in the design, and there is no point for a lot of generators that just get paid for MWh and they probably aren't going to generate many MWh islanded over the life time of the plant. Some generators even get paid for the energy they would have generated if the grid is down.

How many people have a manual transmission car just so they can pop the clutch if the batter is dead.

[hfkajshfaks]

I'm not in this field (university friends are), but reactors require triple redundancy for their power supply, including the grid.

A better question is, should we have nuclear power at all? I took classes in nuclear engineering, by friends are nuclear engineers, ect. but it's not obvious to me that cheap electricity is worth it.

[nnq]

> not obvious to me that cheap electricity is worth it.

Why would you say that? I mean sure, if you can't manage to get cost-effectiveness right then it's not worth it. But otherwise dirt-cheap and readily available electricity is absolutely needed to solve the world's problems! Think about what will happen when large swaths of land loose access to drinking water after climate + pollution wreck things up and the only alternative is ocean water filtration and desalination plants that will need huuuge amounts of power! Also think about massive irrigation and civil engineering projects that will be needed to fight desertifications etc. And to keep heavily populated costal cities above (the new, higher) sea level. That's terrawats upon terrawats of energy that will be needed to constantly shuffle earth and water around, and maybe even to power huge city-scale air filters etc.

We have and still are wrecking up the planet to such a high extent that sooner or later the bill will arrive and we'll need to put heavy effort into re-terraforming Earth to keep it inhabitable... And there really is no other answer than nuclear here, while cities filled with LED-lights and low powered devices and highly thermally efficient buildings can run on renewables, heavy civil engineering projects and land decontamination and producing drinking water etc. will need waaay more power than our blanket of communication equipment and drones.

We could decide not to, but then we'll end up fighting for resources and instead of nuclear power with it's inherent risks we'll get... nuclear wars!

[segfaultbuserr]

> >...don't get it: why would you turn off your nuclear power plants, even if the grid failed?!

> reactors require triple redundancy for their power supply, including the grid.

Thanks for posting. I learned something interesting today.

I can imagine the consequences of a total loss of power in nuclear reactors...