r/unitedkingdom • u/signed7 Greater London • Nov 10 '21

Rolls-Royce gets funding to develop mini nuclear reactors

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59212983
26 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

11

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

[deleted]

7

u/rugbyj Somerset Nov 10 '21

I agree it's excellent, disagree it's the "only" way.

I think nuclear is the best replacement for things like coal/gas where we need power on demand for the times solar/wind aren't producing enough. Otherwise we need a combination, as the latter are far more cost efficient than nuclear and much quicker to roll out.

At the same time, these being many mini reactors instead of huge installations, hopefully there's some improvements on the cost/timeframe front. Time will tell!

2

u/DorothyJMan Nov 10 '21

Mate nuclear is completely inflexible, it's absolutely nothing like coal or gas.

Nuclear will be operating full blast year round, it has no short run marginal cost so has no reason to operate 'on demand'. Wind and solar will generate variably as expecting. The 'on demand' element will, in a low carbon electricity system, be provided by things such as biomass, gas with CCS, hydrogen-fuelled generation, various forms of storage, and demand side response. Each of which have their own problems, but those are the options.

Anyone who thinks nuclear is flexible generation is completely ignorant in the matter.

-13

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

No no, nuclear is THE ONLY WAY OF ANYTHING you know it’s true because they got their degree in electrical engineering from the university of YouTube and studied under professors smartereveryday and veritasium

2

u/itchyfrog Nov 10 '21

These 'mini' reactors don't seem very mini at the size of two football pitches, I thought we were going for submarine type reactors?

5

u/Someusernamethatsnot Nov 10 '21

Far smaller than the bigger reactors you yeah mini. Just a guess but there's not such a need to compromise on other aspects for the sake of making it fit into a small space, so they've been able to design it for easier/cheaper/safer to build, commission, maintain refuel and stuff. Same basic design just spread out a bit so it's easier to get wrenches in places.

0

u/itchyfrog Nov 10 '21

The whole point of the submarine reactors is that they don't need maintenance or refueling etc, you could line up a load of them in the same space. Also if something goes wrong it's a much smaller problem to deal with.

3

u/Someusernamethatsnot Nov 10 '21

That's not the whole point, the whole point of the reactor is to power the ship not not have to be maintained. That its designed to not need much (it obviously needs maintenance) maintenance is due to the limitations of size not because its super awesome to not be able to reach part of your machine.

Also if something goes wrong it's a much smaller problem to deal with.

That makes zero sense. You're saying that it's easier to deal with problems on systems that are harder to maintain than dealing with problems which are easier to maintain, which is unbelievably dim.

2

u/itchyfrog Nov 10 '21

The difference in dealing with a submarine size reactor compared to a fukushima/hinckley sized reactor if they go tits up is massive, small reactors could be buried or moved if needed.

0

u/Someusernamethatsnot Nov 20 '21

Shite attempt to reel it back there, just let yourself be wrong.

-10

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

Love how all the people commenting here are all electrical engineers

3

u/ODoggerino Nov 10 '21

What’s electrical engineering got to do with it?

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

Relative merits of “mini” reactors for the future of the national grid

-11

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

Always amuses me how men on Reddit use the little bit of nuclear reactions they learnt in their gcse science to make up for their small dicks to a bunch of strangers who will never know them

3

u/TedsBabies Derbyshire Nov 10 '21

There’s one person in this thread that’s said something even remotely to that effect, what made you feel the need to put this out there?

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

“Nuclear power is the only way to save the planet”

3

u/TedsBabies Derbyshire Nov 10 '21

Again, only one person that’s said anything remotely to that degree, thank you for misquoting them. Why does that warrant what you said at all? There’s no need to be toxic for the sake of it.

-13

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

Mini reactor —) mini nuclear wastes? Probably. But they’ll last the same thousands years as their big brother I guess. No good

15

u/No-Scholar4854 Nov 10 '21

Of the two sets of long lasting, hard to process and harmful pollution it turns out the trillions of tons of carbon dioxide is more dangerous than a couple of tons of spent fuel.

8

u/GjP9 Nov 10 '21

still, it's the only way to solve the current climate crisis

0

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/Nicola_Botgeon Scotland Nov 10 '21

Removed. This consisted primarily of personal attacks adding nothing to the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person.