this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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I don't claim to be an expert on nuclear power, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but from what I've seen, smaller reactors don't seem to make much sense. The trend seems to be towards bigger reactors with bigger power output. Some of it thanks to the bureaucracy of getting permits per reactor, but also the physics, engineering, real estate and economics involved. Conventional (i.e. existent) reactors are typically a fairly small part of a nuclear power plant's footprint, so no matter how much you miniaturize them you will have the overhead of security, operations, cooling and electrical infrastucture.
If someone can fill me in on the benefits of smaller, more modular nuclear reactors and how they might outweight those of large installations, I'm interested.
square-cube law is in full force there
one argument in favour of SMRs i've seen is that while less efficient than regular sized reactors, these are cheaper per unit (but not for MW) so some of them can be built earlier than bigger reactors. which doesn't matter because these things don't exist
The hypothetical benefit is that prefabricated parts are a lot less dependent on the site. This will make the reactor cheaper to build.
There's also a perception sleight of hand - "modular" doesn't mean the reactor is a module you ship in on a big truck, put some uranium in and away you go. You're building a power station in a fixed location.
Also you still need a shitload of water.