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kristopher

(29,798 posts)
Thu May 16, 2013, 08:42 AM May 2013

Arjun Makhijani: Building small modular reactors senseless

Arjun Makhijani: Building small modular reactors senseless


The highly touted “nuclear renaissance” is ending with a whimper.

...Now the Tennessee Valley Authority is looking to Small Modular Reactors...The rationale for this venture was set forth at a recent University of Tennessee colloquium by Dan Stout, TVA’s senior manager for SMRs. He claimed mass-manufacturing techniques, the “economics of replication” in building multiple SMRs, would replace the “economies of scale” gained from large reactors.

Stout said the contracting challenge is that B&W can’t afford to build a factory for SMRs based on one order. The first unit for TVA most likely would be “cobbled together” at existing facilities, not on an assembly line dedicated to SMRs. But if B&W could get 100 orders for SMRs from countries such as China and India, he said, the company would be able to get financing to build a new factory with a dedicated assembly line.

...It also stretches credulity that China and India, the main centers of nuclear power construction today, along with Russia, would place orders for 100 reactors. Why would China, with 28 large reactors under construction and an established supply chain, not license the design and set up an assembly line in Shanghai or Chengdu? So a possible, even likely, outcome, in the event of technical success, is that the federal government subsidy to B&W and TVA would pave the way for an assembly line in China.

And what happens if a common design or manufacturing problem is discovered...


http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/mar/09/arjun-makhijani-building-small-modular-reactors/
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Arjun Makhijani: Building small modular reactors senseless (Original Post) kristopher May 2013 OP
Du rec. Nt xchrom May 2013 #1
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