|
|
|
|
|
|
by giantg2
2036 days ago
|
|
|
With the newer breeders (FAST), the main difference is safety. You don't need the same control mechanisms because they automatically cool down due to the physics of them so that they don't melt down. I'd imagine that FAST reactors eliminating the need for ever increasing safety tech and complexity of it for conventional reactors would be a cost savings (or at least make it close). Not to mention the clean up costs when you compare to a conventional reactor that could melt down, even if it's rare. I'm not saying that the engineers are idiots. But there are some engineers (supported by government or corporate funds) still building new prototypes and testing new designs, such as FAST. Especially in the US, a driving reason that new designs aren't used is that there have been few built I'm recent decades - partially due to lower cost alternatives and also due to public opinion. |
|
|
> eliminating the need for ever increasing safety tech and complexity of it for conventional reactors would be a cost savings
Passive safety features are useful, but they don't end up replacing active features (you still need to control the reactor during normal use). At best they might allow for reducing the redundancy level on a critical system -- which might save a bit bit of money, although not much.
Better safety is always a great feature in general, but it's not close to making breeders cost competitive on its own.
> Not to mention the clean up costs when you compare to a conventional reactor that could melt down, even if it's rare.
Actual meltdowns are exceedingly rare (and catastrophically expensive + devastating), so you don't really factor them into the cost equation for a normal reactor.
> Especially in the US, a driving reason that new designs aren't used is that there have been few built I'm recent decades - partially due to lower cost alternatives and also due to public opinion
Mostly cost tbh -- nuclear energy has been historically somewhat unpopular (especially after major accidents) but there's a lot of industrial projects that continue anyway despite being unpopular (oil pipelines etc). The financials for nuclear reactors are not great (it's a big, financially high-risk investment that takes decades to really pay off), so there's less incentive.