OT: Rolls Royce on track to deliver SMR

In message <s05djh$3jh$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, The Natural Philosopher snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid writes

I'm rather taken with the seismic isolation concept, 1.5 acre concrete raft on a bed of pebbles!

Cooling water has always seemed to be an issue for siting nuclear power. Are these small enough to manage with towers and a pond?

I was taken with his choice of words: "we believe that nuclear power can really mushroom". :)

I think nukes always were. Seawater is just cheaper.

lets face it if a 1.2GW CCGT can get away with a cooling tower, a 46MW SMR should be able to.

And of course other options exist. Low grade heat still has value. Think of undersoil heating for greenhouses nearby.

And they are of course linking it to desalination as well - a nuclear power station using seawater to cool it and evaporating and condensing fresh water is a handy thing to have.

;-)

And I wonder how many would want one ITBY, even compared with a solar farm, wind turbine(s) or a biofuel / gas powered station?

Obviously Turnip would be happy with it in his BY ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m

But it can cause massive corrosion problems

If things continue at this pace, excellent news.

Especially the possibility for desalination - plonk a few of these around the parts of the world that need water and consider the electricity a handy by product :)

Isn't the electricity /used/ to do the desalination?

Humour fail :)

Although, come to think of it, no. Well, not necessarily.

Nuclear reactor. Shedloads of serious heat (i.e. >100C) might as well just distil the seawater. Unless you want to extract metals by electrolysis I guess ?

It is possible to reclaim desert (or so I have been told) if you can irrigate and foliate enough area to start releasing water. Although it has to be *very* big.

AIUI the mainly use reverse osmosis, not distilation.

You've come around to the idea of hydrogen generation?

You mean like what I was suggesting a few days ago ?

:)

Or something else ?

But would only need to pass through the seawater pipes, pumps and heat-exchangers, with a duty, standby and backup arrangement. As corrosion takes effect, one can be taken out of service for replacement/refurbishment, still leaving a duty and standby.

I've got my order in for one. Should power this locality nicely. Just need a few mods. Not enough room for solar farm, wind turbines and I don't want more carbons going into the atmosphere - defeats the objective.

Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together.

Solar farm - doesn't work much in winter, or at night all year round. Wind turbine - f****ng noisy if you're near it, doesn't produce much and often none at all. Others - no gas to this village.

Mostly that doesn't seem to have been a problem. After all seawater cooling has been used on steamships since whenever

filters blocked with seaweed seems to be more common

Actually no.

the waste heat does that.

Boil some seawater, channel the steam through a condenser (cooled by more seawater) and voilà! - fresh water

You would probably build it just for that, since steam is what comes out of a PWR.

Most deserts I have known will grow anything as long as you add water.

No, I think it is a s*it idea. But its fashionable among Art Students Gimme synJet any day run my car and my central heating on that.

I only mentioned it to keep you happy. Same as RR did. The nuclear industry is playing to the green gallery with cheap zero carbon electricity and 'hydrogen'.

The fact is that if RR can make the prices they claim and the government doesn't get NutNutzed, they will wipe the floor with renewables.