Comment by nicce
20 hours ago
It isn't that rare in general - if the U.S. opens the secrets of nuclear submarines - we had had mini reactors for decades.
20 hours ago
It isn't that rare in general - if the U.S. opens the secrets of nuclear submarines - we had had mini reactors for decades.
Total non starter.
Nuclear submarine power plants are not in any way a technology useful for utility scale power generation.
To start with they use fuel enriched to weapons grade.
They aren't cost effective vs the amount of power produced, and the designs don't scale up to utility scale power.
Submarine plants are not some sort of miracle SMR we can just roll out.
The Navy is willing to page cost premiums a utility company cannot, because for the Navy it's about having a necessary capability. There's no economic break even to consider.
I thought I'd mention that ship supplied short power has been a thing for ages. USS Daniel Webster even trained for this for new years eve apocalypse nothingburger. And its almost always been used for only powering something critical. Today's subs are <10MW. Nothing for utility scale. I can't imagine the economics are ever good. More of a: we've already got this boat.
https://thenaptimeauthor.wordpress.com/2021/04/09/the-uss-le...
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/11/26/A-nuclear-submarine-...
There are some floating PWRs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_pow...
Secrecy isn't the obstacle here. Naval reactors are optimized for combat performance, costs be damned. They aren't economically efficient for commercial power generation.
At least Russia is doing fine with SMRs, thought the fuel enrichment level is around 20%. They are building new reactors all the time and they seem pretty efficient. E.g. they have even floating nuclear plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov
The problem is economics. Just because the Us built a fleet does not mean that they are economical once put in a non-military application.
I'd be fine with us just having the USA navy operate them we build them for carriers and subs just double or triple the order and plug em into the grid.
And the technology is incredibly mature, submarine reactors were some of the first reactors, period.
And they are heavily guarded.
In the current political climate I prefer energy sources that don’t cause severe damage if sabotaged.
Did you hear the worries in Ukraine that Russia could hit a wind turbine with a rocket?
What's the danger in hitting a micro nuclear reactor with a rocket ? A shitty dirty bomb detonated near the powerplant ?
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Submarine reactors run on super high enriched fuel instantly one could instantly repurpose into a bomb. Lots of gen 4 and 5 reactor designs that combine low cost, compact footprint, and running on less expensive and carefully controlled fuel.
French have some LEU submarines. They seem to be pretty good on paper. Needs refueling every ten years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffren-class_submarine
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The DoD is not exactly known for great efficiency and getting the most value for money