Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "The Genius of China's Small Modular Nuclear Reactor" video.

CORRECTION TO THIS - Nuclear like EVERY energy source we use has a carbon output. No matter what anyone says or does it is simply impossible to get the Carbon Output to zero. We can start with the simple reality of extracting Uranium Ore form the ground AND BEFORE ANYONE ASKS I have actually worked on a Uranium Mine (ERA Ranger in Australia). So I know how that part of the process works and YES it has carbon emissions. PLUS every engineered installation on the planet needs maintenance and the replacement of parts. That's an ongoing process and those NEW REPLACEMENT PARTS, irrespective of what material they are made from involve carbon emissions. So lets just be factual and say there is NO such thing as the ZERO Carbon system here on the Earth. What we actually need to be working towards is a SUSTAINABLE CARBON CYCLE. Before the industrial revolution there planet had its own stabilised carbon cycle. Since the Industrial Revolution "WE" (the human race) have thrown that carbon cycle out of whack and we now need to un-whack it. Will nuclear power help us un-whack the carbon cycle? ABSOLUTELY, but its NOT the only thing we need to do. Sorry if this next part is longish but it actually links up with your video on the AC system the ex-NASA engineer has done. The biggest thing by far will be energy efficiency. We have to be more efficient with energy. So you understand there's a direct correlation between GLOABL energy production and GLOBAL GDP. If Global GDP keeps increasing we will get to the point where global energy use literally cooks the planet. Forget greenhouse effects energy use alone will do the damage. The energy issue has been ignored by mainstream economists for decades but has NOT been missed by a few economists, engineers, physicists and other scientists. The core problem is energy efficiency. If you look at the energy efficiency through the entire process then what you use for things like kettles, TVs and the computer your at right now is as little as 5% and for most things across the developed world less than 10% efficient of the actual energy used. This comes from 2 simple realities. One there's the energy consumed for raw materials an infrastructure. Two there's the basic efficiency with which we produce electricity which is only about 35-36%. Go look at the basic data for the EPR 2 reactors at Hinkley point (36%) or the AP1000s used at Vogtle (35%). They're no different to coal fired power stations for the simple reason they boil water and the Carnot efficiency (1 - Tc/Th) for steam turbines is limited to about 36% because of the boiler-turbine-condenser combination. It can be raised to about 42% with high temp high pressure flash boilers but that's NOT as easy as it sounds or it would have been standard practice. The reason why Gas turbines get around 45-46% efficiency is because they operate at a better Tc/Th ratio (eg 1700-800C at 45.6% versus 500-225C at 35.6%) It also why cogeneration works so well because IF your gas turbine exhaust is 800C you can use that to boil water. Yes there's some losses but you can boost the over all efficiency to around 64-65%. The GE 9HA in cogeneration gets about 64.5%. Then there's the losses with the high voltage transmission to your local substation, then the losses of transforming to medium voltages and transmitting that through the local grid and then finally the local transforming down to the low voltage at your house and the power loop through your house back to the grid. So the electricity you use at your computer is lucky if its arriving at the power point at 20%. Then when you look at how much of the energy in a computer is lost as heat in the power supply and chips and you are lucky if your above 10%. This is why technologies like the AC technology from the ex-NASA engineer I just saw in another of your other video are so important. Across the board we have to be more efficient with energy. Another example are buildings as in large office blocks and towers. Prof Mark Blyth (Brown U.) has several times mentioned an engineering study that said if America triple glazed all of those glass clad towers in major cities then America would meet its carbon reduction requirements for the Paris Agreement AND IF THEY DID IT the operational cost reductions would greatly enhance the profits of the owners of those buildings. Plus all the work needed to get that job done would keep 1,000s and 1,000s of people employed for at least a decade maybe 2. But then America just re-elected Captain Greed and his army of Planet F⋃CKING Maggots. So your guess on what's next is as good as mine.
1
Simple lack of investment because NOBODY controls the IP. There's a real issue with the free market approach to energy because it simply does NOT work and almost nobody in the economics profession will admit that they got it wrong.
1
@haruhisuzumiya6650 Not quite vapourware just not enough money to get it over the line. MSRs were clearly a better option for commercial reactors and they knew that in the 1970s after the Oakridge experimental units. The problem was there was so much investment in PWRs and they were established and sorted out. Its a lot like many other technology struggles. The best technology does not always win. One of the classics I remember was VHS versus Betamax. By every video quality metric Betamax was a better technology. VHS had 2 advantages. Its was cheaper to make the tapes and they were in the market first.
1
@tvuser9529 Actually there's no vapour in a steam turbine. To work they have to keep the H2O ABOVE the temperature where there's vapour and its 100% steam (as in a gas). Its why it doesn't matter what the heat source is most thermal plants are limited to about 36% Carnot Efficiency. To get higher efficiency you have to operate at higher boiler temperatures or use a different gas which is the theory behind gas cooled Gen IV reactors. Sorry for the geek out
1
@ fair enuf mate it was a fair pun but lost on non-geeks
1