Their videos are a lot of fun. One of the best YouTube channels.
Canada is working on building our first SMR at the site of the Candu reactor at point lapreau New Brunswick. The last estimate they gave was completion by the early 2030s. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario have signed on to support the development of SMRs like the one being built at point lapreau. The federal government also dumped more cash into the project a few weeks ago.
These will be a game changer. Presumably we could export this technology to the developing world and help countries like those in Africa bypass coal burning power plants like they bypassed landlines and jumped straight to mobile phones.
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I had read some recent stuff on SMR's(brief articles) that now say it's overhyped, and they have most of the issues full size plants do. SMR's are just a hype train, and will still be way over priced. Not sure where the truth lies on them. Has any country actually started building and using them?
That was a good video and actually spoke well to the high level conflicts/challenges with ALL energy sources. Regardless, our absolute reliance upon hydrocarbon based energy is not sustainable. Neither is the massive DEMAND which leads the supply aspect... materialism and capitalism certainly isn't helping. Most of these latter two items are coming from developing nations. Fossil fuels are simply easiest.
So STARTING the change process and developing more skills and technology development is critical towards realistically starting the journey towards energy with better ESG footprints. EV's have terrible ESG footprints for example, and often times so do wind farms when one considers what has to go into the full-cycle of build, maintain, demolition.
With respect to Nuclear, the following article is quite good IMO and worth a read. The fella also writes a number of other excellent articles well worth reading. https://achemistinlangley.net/2021/0...long-to-build/
Burns my buns a little that saskatchewan is sitting all the uranium in the world, the middle of the prairies being one of the safest possible places for a nuclear fission reactor, and yet we are not pumping out nuclear power plants and associated science like no ones business. I get that Nuclear Fission has downsides but just having the critical mass of knowledge behind these reactors (not to mention all that potential for extra power for export...) would be worth it. Imagine if we were in a position to be designing a nuclear fusion reactor based on this scientific development? Not a coincidence that Nuclear Fusion model reactors are all being built in places that had large nuclear fission power programs.
I've been a huge supporter of nuclear energy for over a decade and if we're making a big push for EVs to be the future of transport, something has to give.
"Green" energy is stupid, full stop, and will never keep up with the demand EVs will put on the grid. Coal is terrible for the environment, natural gas is better than coal but still dirty. Nuclear is 100% the way to go.
I'm not surprised there's opposition to nuclear energy though, we can't even get full buy in on a vaccine that will save 10s if not 100s of millions of lives.
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I think we need to get on with it if we are going to get serious about nuclear. From an execution standpoint, there is a big issue with there being huge time gaps between projects. There is attrition of anyone who has any background on the last project, and most of the engineering on a new project doesn't have a ton of experience that is nuclear specific. If we build a bunch of reasonably cookie cutter projects, the engineers, fabricators, constructors will all get better over time. The first couple will be inevitably over budget but they will get cheaper as you get expertise and supply chains worked out. No different than the AB O&G industry, if you are Cenovus and you are building phase after phase of the same SAGD plant they get pretty lean after a while. But if you are ConocoPhillips and you build a once in a generation massive single facility it is going to be a challenge to stay on budget.
We have tons of engineering and construction talent in AB that could pivot to nuclear plant work. We may not know the really specialized reactor guts stuff, but there are a ton of ancillary systems we could do in a heartbeat.
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Burns my buns a little that saskatchewan is sitting all the uranium in the world, the middle of the prairies being one of the safest possible places for a nuclear fission reactor, and yet we are not pumping out nuclear power plants and associated science like no ones business. I get that Nuclear Fission has downsides but just having the critical mass of knowledge behind these reactors (not to mention all that potential for extra power for export...) would be worth it. Imagine if we were in a position to be designing a nuclear fusion reactor based on this scientific development? Not a coincidence that Nuclear Fusion model reactors are all being built in places that had large nuclear fission power programs.
Saskatchewan eyes small nuclear reactor advancements with 3 other provinces
I think the end goal with small modular reactors is to shrink them down to around the size of of 18 wheel trailer (about the size of packed oil rig base) and manufacture them at one facility for sale and transport to a final location. The issue I see is when many of these reactors are built who's to say that one does not end up in a place like North Korea and they try to build a submarine around it or try to harvest the fuel to make a nuclear or a dirty radiation bomb. So in essence the number of customers would be limited and certain powerful state actors would like assurances that they could not be weaponized increasing the complexity and cost.
Figured I'd bump this since we're talking so much about it in the inflation thread.
Honestly, switching away from fossil fuels is probably not as hard as we think. It pretty much boils down to having the political will to invest into advancement of technology. Heck, even if we look past solar, wind, and nuclear, we can find very promising advancements in geothermal. The Earth itself is an endless supply of energy, we just have to tap into it! It's not even that hard to do.
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Has any country actually started building and using them?
The Russians have one on a barge.
That's the only one I know of.
A classmate of mine is working on these for OPG. The first ones in Canada will be at the existing nuke sites, they are already permitted for that use and have sufficient transmission capacity to get the power out.
Much along the same lines, the existing coal generator sites are really good places for these as it maximizes the use of the existing infrastructure Alberta has already built.
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This is Manitoba has of June 2022.
High propane + natural gas prices should discourage investments on that front for space heating, and instead should encourage investments in electric & heat pump methods.
Which hopefully will result in further r&D to be made into making heat pumps more efficient in -40 C weather. There are a few models out there, but they fall to 80% efficiency in -30C.
There are groups who are tremendously interested in raising public awareness of geoexchange systems (not to be confused with geothermal systems).
^ It also explains in great detail the difference between geoexhange systems and geothermal systems.
Governments can and probably should be providing more tax incentives/rebates than they currently do, for people who decide to get one of these systems installed in their home. If they increase these incentives, we would probably see a lot more homes and businesses getting these systems installed. Kenney, I'm looking at you...
Geothermal systems are different from geoexchange. A geothermal plant (such as Alberta 1, the first of its kind in Alberta) extracts mass amounts of heat from the earth and then either provides the heat to a local district heating system or generates electricity.
As for R&D, the key to getting more improvements of these systems is more government grants, loans, private investment, etc. Lack of funding is literally the only thing holding back the advancement of the technology.
Industrial scale geothermal makes sense, but everything I've seen about small-scale geothermal and geoexchange (i.e. for a single structure) shows that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in comparison to air source heat pumps. They're slightly more efficient, but significantly more expensive and complex. I know they have their fans, but nothing I've ever seen shows a real payback.
Really, the technology is already there for electrification of heating at costs that rival gas. We're getting to the point where you probably shouldn't even be allowed to install a gas furnace in newly constructed buildings in places like BC, Manitoba or Quebec (they still make the most sense in places with higher grid emissions).
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Alberta doesn't really have great geothermal opportunities. I've looked in the north, and not much there, either. BC has a few isolated areas, but it's not going to be our savior for generating power.
Those geoexchange home systems look like they would be very expensive. Maybe just force them on anyone building a +$2 million home.
General Fusion's plant in the UK comes online in 2025. It's a proof of concept, that costs a couple hundred million to build and isn't for practical usage. Generally speaking, no fusion reactor has created more energy than it consumes, but this one shows every sign of turning that around.
So, dive into SMR, or wait until this is a viable option and sidestep the radiation and waste issues of nuclear?
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The aim of the pilot plant, Mowry says, is to reach a fusion-relevant temperature of more than 100 million degrees Celsius and show that the whole process could be economical. It will use a relatively unreactive fuel of pure deuterium, a hydrogen isotope with one neutron, instead of the deuterium-tritium (D-T) mix a full-size commercial power reactor would use. That lets the pilot project avoid having to source rare, radioactive tritium and deal with the excess heat and generated radioactivity. A working reactor would breed its own tritium by using the radiation produced by the fusion reaction to break down the some of the lithium liner.
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Burns my buns a little that saskatchewan is sitting all the uranium in the world, the middle of the prairies being one of the safest possible places for a nuclear fission reactor, and yet we are not pumping out nuclear power plants and associated science like no ones business. I get that Nuclear Fission has downsides but just having the critical mass of knowledge behind these reactors (not to mention all that potential for extra power for export...) would be worth it. Imagine if we were in a position to be designing a nuclear fusion reactor based on this scientific development? Not a coincidence that Nuclear Fusion model reactors are all being built in places that had large nuclear fission power programs.
what are the chances of a uranium mine getting going in canada these days. it would take years to get a shovel in the ground between protestors and permits and what not.
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what are the chances of a uranium mine getting going in canada these days. it would take years to get a shovel in the ground between protestors and permits and what not.
Why would they need a new mine? Saskatchewan already has the largest uranium mine in the world which produces about 15% of the world's supply. And 85% of what that mine produces is exported.
Alberta doesn't really have great geothermal opportunities.
With current technology we have significant potential for heat extraction but not necessarily electricity generation. However, with advancements in drilling technology making it less costly and allowing us to drill much deeper than we currently can, there could be big potential for both. Have a look at this: https://www.eavor.com/
Right here in Alberta we're already showing it can be done. It's just a matter of getting deeper to hotter rock, which will happen once drilling technology improves. The answer there might be millimeter drill technology. https://www.quaise.energy/
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