HN Explorer

4 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 22.2 ms ] thread
flerovium
It's hard not to ignore the fact that anti-nuclear weapons rhetoric has significantly picked up steam recently.[1]

After the pandemic, people seem to have more attention for low-risk high-impact possibilities.

[1] See Ken Follet's Never, op-eds about disarmament, and political science research interest.

h2odragon
Oil industry funded anti-nuclear efforts and groups for years. The fact that some of them now decry the oil industry doesn't necessarily mean they're enemies; the oil industry enjoys high prices more than they hate bad PR.
credit_guy
I am as pro-nuclear as they come, but I find the tone of this article a bit too inflammatory. I used to think the NRC's licensing process is so complex only because of, you know, stupid bureaucracy. But I looked into the actual documents posted for the safety evaluation of the NuScale SMR, which you can find at [1]. I am not specialist, but there are plenty of topics that do appear to me to require serious consideration.

Here's an example from the final report [2] , something about "boron dilution"

  We are concerned especially about boron dilution in the downcomer by steam condensation from the steam generators or the vessel wall because it may provide a source of unborated coolant that can migrate to the core following a perturbation. 
  This could lead to a rapid return to power event (reactivity insertion accident) with the possibility of core damage.
Now, it probably depends on pronunciation, but to me "core damage" rhymes a little with Chernobyl. I am glad that the NRC took their time to evaluate this risk, and numerous other like that.

[1] https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/smr/nuscale/ser-op...

[2] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2021/ML20212L586.pdf