U.S. Air Force selects fast microreactor for nuclear power pilot

https://www.powermag.com/u-s-air-force-selects-fast-microreactor-for-nuclear-power-pilot/

86 93 3 years ago

Initiated in response to a Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act requirement, DAF’s Micro-Reactor Pilot Program seeks to build and operate at least one licensed microreactor by Dec. 31, 2027, that will deliver power and steam to a defense base under a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA).

For those of you like me who got excited about the prospect of nuclear powered aircraft, the reactor is to power a base.

dylan6042• 3 years ago

For 24/7/365/30 constant airborne capabilities? Seems overkill to say the least. Also, not sure too many people would be happy with a nuclear reactor flying overhead.

hangonhn• 3 years ago

Funnily enough, molten salt reactor were developed for this specific purpose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment

cwp• 3 years ago

Also, potentially bad outcomes if a nuclear aircraft is shot down.

S201• 3 years ago

For 24/7/365/30 constant airborne capabilities?

I'm not saying it's necessary (or even a good idea, see the "accidents" section in the linked to article), but it also wouldn't be the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chrome_Dome

AnthonyMouse8• 3 years ago

For 24/7/365/30 constant airborne capabilities?

Probably for the ability to replace fossil fuels in an application where batteries don't have enough energy density.

Also, not sure too many people would be happy with a nuclear reactor flying overhead.

Better not tell them the kinds of things in the cargo holds of existing planes.

mr337• 3 years ago

You may find this interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR5gefU87TY (t 6:12). Sadly it didn't pan out.

abeppu• 3 years ago

They used the word 'pilot' in an ambiguous way, in the context of the Airforce, and then the first photo on the page is of an aircraft in flight. I think the editors _wanted_ you to momentarily think this was going to be an airborne reactor.

brucethemoose2• 3 years ago

You might be interested in:

https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#cor...

Or, just using reactors in a more straightforward way:

https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist2.php#fi...

skywal_l• 3 years ago

Although I am an advocate for nuclear power, I am a little worried about small reactors, which will inevitably warrant less attention and care.

The smaller they are, there more there are, the more there is a risk of mistakes and dissemination to bad actors I think.

remarkEon• 3 years ago

which will inevitably warrant less attention and care.

Can you explain why this would be the case? I suppose you might need less manpower to run the reactor, which might mean fewer total man hours. But does that necessarily mean it gets less attention and care?

discodave• 3 years ago

Presumably part of the appeal of a small reactor is it's cost. If you're trying to do things on a budget, then there's smaller budget for safety.

callalex2• 3 years ago

The US military has been safely running small mobile nuclear reactors for many human generations at this point.

rightbyte2• 3 years ago

Until n=0 goes to 1. As the Concorde.

Like, this sudden optimism concerning nuclear power is a bit worrying. Lowest bidder building small plants everywhere. What a nightmare ...

I really don't get where all this trust for the competence of others comes from.

ianburrell• 3 years ago

The Navy spends uses lots of people to run reactors on ships and spends tons of money training them.

Small reactors won't be economical if they take that many people to run.

Also, naval reactors aren't small. Aircraft carriers have two 250 MW (700 MW thermal) reactors. That is a respectable power plant and much larger than proposed modular reactors.

crmd2• 3 years ago

This reactor is being run by a private company who will sell the power to the Air Force.

michael1999• 3 years ago

The _Navy_ has been safely running reactors. Neither the Air Force, nor Marines have any real experience, and the Army experience was decidedly mixed.

mrtksn2• 3 years ago

I have similar reservations for proliferation of the nuclear energy as a whole. Currently, these devices need careful handling and we appear to have enough smart and serious people to do just that however I don't trust having enough of those people if we had a reactor in every city.

But on the other hand we have managed to have air travel(which also relies on meticulous maintenance and operations) very safe despite sharp increase of flight over the years, so it must be possible to find a way to make it work.

kibwen3• 3 years ago

The relative safety of airlines is solely, solely, solely because of stringent safety regulation. If you see anyone arguing that nuclear power could be cheaper if we just waived regulation, you can safely disregard their opinion as hopelessly myopic.

houseatrielah2• 3 years ago

There's a big push for nuclear now, I'm curious, is there a hypothetical series of events that even an reasonable nuclear advocate is concerned about? They are mostly not too worried about Fukushima water for example.

BurningFrog• 3 years ago

The Fukushima water issue is a good test case.

Anyone informed knows it is harmless.

mikeyouse• 3 years ago

The water being discharged into the Ocean from Fukushima isn't problematic but the cleanup from the entire debacle there is going to take somewhere around a trillion dollars and last 30+ years. There's still a multi thousand acre exclusion zone... Up until a few years ago, there was a large nuke plant with a history safety incidents, owned and operated by a company implicated in several bribery scandals, directly upwind from NYC.

Nuclear technology, operated by responsible operators in well-designed plants is extremely safe. Unfortunately we live in a world where Nuke plant operators literally bribe legislators for billion dollar bailouts and the companies responsible for operating our fleet are the worst profit-maximizing ghouls you can imagine. It's the essence of John Glenn's quote about the Apollo missions, "My life depended on 150,000 pieces of equipment, each bought from the lowest bidder."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/22/ohio-house-...

https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/06/24/...

phil21• 3 years ago

I like to think I'm a reasonable advocate.

I think the strongest anti-nuclear case is one of civilization collapse (fast or slowly) and instability - what happens when say, Russia, can no longer afford or has the capability to maintain these plants? Even shutting them down leaves huge massive problems for multiple generations.

Then you have the waste storage issue which is largely a political issue. This needs to be solved before nuclear in the US can really be seen as realistic - imo.

rich_sasha• 3 years ago

Based on their operating record, I'm far more concerned about the risk of CO2 and other pollutants spewed out by fossil fuel plants. If we could swap all fossil fuels for nukes, I'd happily live next to one, even a 70s Russian one.

Even if it goes horribly wrong, even if there's another Chernobyl event and I end up dying 10 years premature due to cancer, I'll be happy knowing the planet won't be a hot disaster in a 100 years time. And even then, my odds are good, even if it's a 70s Russian plant we're talking about. Chances are I'll live much longer, breathing healthier air.

People say "why not renewables" but so far these only work with storage, which we haven't figured out yet. No major area in the world lives entirely off renewables with no fossil fuel backup or imports. Except maybe some very special cases that have very few people and very good hydro (Norway). But even Switzerland, with a favourable geography, doesn't run entirely on renewables, it is indeed nukes that fill the gap.

Ironically of course, clean energy Norway is a major exporter of gas and oil...

AtlasBarfed3• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_nuclear_reactor

It appears to not require active safety systems. And we are talking about Alaska.

crmd2• 3 years ago

I would much rather see a small number of highly secure mega baseload power plants distributed across the country and run like mainframes vs distributed computing.

imtringued2• 3 years ago

That's $35 billion plus tip, please.

jauntywundrkind2• 3 years ago

Very excited to see some modern fast reactors happening!

Nuclear waste leaves me with such reservations, these fuel cycles where we use a % or two of the energy, create a bunch of tranuranic waste, and then deal with stuff for thousands of years.

Fasr reactors seem uneconomic, like something industry & capitalism would never ever do. The negative impact of everything else is so easy to externalize. The risk of doing anything new or well is so low.

It's enormously sad to find that military and military alone has the capacity to try new things, to invest better in the future. But here, I'll take it.

AnthonyMouse8• 3 years ago

Nuclear is uneconomical because politics wants it to be.

Leading up to the 1980s, nuclear was poised to replace basically the whole power grid. "Too cheap to meter" they said. Fossil fuel energy companies and the petroleum exporting countries who had only recently gotten their cartel going were, shall we say, not happy with this. (Also Russians. Literally they got caught funding anti-nuclear "environmental groups"; someone published the documents after they went into Ukraine. Russia is another major petroleum exporter.)

So they ran a propaganda campaign centered around Chernobyl to paint the safest known method of power generation as one too dangerous to use, so it would be buried in safety rules the incumbents weren't subject to themselves. (If a nuclear power plant released as much radiation as every coal-fired one does, it would be shut down.)

And now they say "well, it would be nice, but we can't use it because it costs too much."

kibwen3• 3 years ago

I'm frustrated by this argument. Yes, nuclear power gets unfairly maligned across several axes. Yes, fossil fuel is even more of a disaster. But what we have now is a situation where nuclear power has all of its negative externalities properly priced in, whereas fossil fuel doesn't, and yet we have people arguing to remove the forces that properly price in the externalities of nuclear rather than doing the right thing, which is properly pricing in the externalities of fossil fuels. This is counterproductive. Look around at our modern world and see everything enshittifying around us in the relentless pursuit of profit; now imagine that applied to nuclear power. What a nightmare.

AtlasBarfed3• 3 years ago

Lazard's LCOE on nuclear is 6x as expensive as solar and wind.

I would like to think that regulatory issues are responsible for most of that. I would. I simply don't think it is all pencil pushers.

The real challenge is that any broad nuclear power push would result in reactors coming online in 8-10 years. That's 8-10 years of solar/wind benefiting from economies of scale, cheaper grid storage, perovskites, better wind designs, better engineering of offshore wind, etc. It's my very rough guess that solar/wind will drop by 50% in "real dollar" cost in the next 10 years, with only marginal increased cost for grid storage using sodium-ion or sodium-sulfur or pumped hydro or any manner of storage.

I think there is enormous potential still in nuclear, and I'm glad applications like this nuclear contract are keeping it afloat. I'm glad the Chinese are pursuing an MSR, and active "next-gen" nuclear startups are in action. I believe there is a design and regulatory framework and proven safety system that can result in competitive nuclear power against solar and wind prices when they stabilize.

It would be great if the air force reactor here and the various "next gen" reactors had examples in operation/production with numbers that substantially undercut the old solid-fuel PWRs monstrosities. But they aren't, and nuclear missed the train of having working substantive designs of these to compete head to head with low cost solar/wind or low-cost gas turbine for leveling. But ... the nuclear industry did not have these ready.

It really doesn't help when nuclear proponents brush safety under the rug, even if Chernobyl was symptomatic of Russian disregard for individual human life, and Fukushima didn't actually kill that many people.

Really, that doesn't send the message you think it does. It sends the message that all the pro-nuclear forces just roll their eyes at compliance and safety as this annoyance. That is a terrible terrible message, because that paints the pro-nuclear people as sloppy and careless. It doesn't matter than coal releases more radiation, or the technical death rate.

The message should be instead "we have learned from X and Y, let me explain to you why reactor design Z makes this and a vast array of other scenarios much safer". Of course for MSRs/LFTR, that's the inherent self-regulation of the fluid, "the plug"/cooling pool", it "burns" 99% of fuel practically eliminating waste transport risk. I know other newer designs are inherently more safe as well.

You should thank China for bringing new nuclear designs online, now the US's labs are starting projects in nuclear power generation again. It may take a decade, but I think a nuclear design will come out that governments can get behind.

But really I also see the modern day pro-nuclear crowd as "polluted" by the old guard that just wants the same old crappy solid fuel rod huge dome PWRs limped along (which I actually support) and to keep all the old guard manufacturers and fuel rod reprocessors as the main providers of nuclear reactors. This IMO is very bad, because those industries, which will not survive without subsidies, will hinder and undermine any newer reactors politically.

Nuclear needs a reboot. I like that this project seems like a step towards a reboot.

imtringued2• 3 years ago

Ah yes, politics wants it to be uneconomical that is why NuScale's nuclear power plant has doubled its costs. It is certainly not the cost of input materials or changes in the interest rate, which makes long financing durations significantly more expensive. No way, it must be a political conspiracy against nuclear power (but somehow the nuclear hating politicians don't seem to mind paying the inflated bills).

https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-r...

"Remarkably, the new $89/MWh price of power would be much higher if it were not for more than $4 billion in subsidies NuScale and UAMPS expect to get from U.S. taxpayers through a $1.4 billion contribution from the Department of Energy and the estimated $30/MWh subsidy in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). "

freitzkriesler2• 3 years ago

If nuclear waste is radioactive, it means that it can be refined into usable products for power production.

The dangerous stuff that's left over is dangerous because it was formally cheaper to bury it and mine more than to refine it .

Not to mention the majority of nuclear reactors were designed to create weapons grade materials which was an equally wasteful activity creative even more waste that needed refinement back to usable fuel.

Now that's coming to an end since power production is far more important. There may be a point Where we will see ourselves digging up nuclear waste sites to recover the left over refuel.

ToDougie2• 3 years ago

How heavy is this waste, and can it be put into rockets and sent somewhere off-planet?

bjoli3• 3 years ago

Strapping waste to enormous canisters of fuel and shooting it up through the atmosphere. What could go wrong?

beefman• 3 years ago

The vendor, Oklo, was in the YC S14 batch and plans to go public in the next quarter or two

https://www.reuters.com/article/oklo-m-a-altc-acquisition/nu...

adolph3• 3 years ago

Oklo, what a clever name.

Oklo is a region near the town of Franceville, in the Haut-Ogooué province of the Central African country of Gabon. Several natural nuclear fission reactors were discovered in the uranium mines in the region in 1972.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo

nielsbot2• 3 years ago

I assumed the natural reactors might still be fissioning, but the Wikipedia page says this occurred about 1.7B years ago. They know they were reactors because the cite has a lower concentration of uranium-235 than expected and also reaction by-products.

Gwypaas• 3 years ago

Through a SPAC after their application to license their design was denied by the NRC, and the responses seem very immature. Does not inspire confidence.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrc-denies-oklo-powers-plan...

dmix• 3 years ago

Looks like the base in right next to Fairbanks, Alaska https://goo.gl/maps/3HBnJAtu5HnqXyyy9

That must be a busy place for intercepting Russian aircraft. They've got 54 F-35's flying out of there and a bunch of surveillance crafts (+ apparently plenty of US army doing winter training, with some frequent Canadian visitors):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eielson_Air_Force_Base

Apparently the base almost closed down following the cold war but then the northern pacific became a hot zone again with Russia and China.

mike_d2• 3 years ago

The base supports JPARC which is the primary cold weather training area for the entire DoD. They also house a massive refueling operation since tons of military APAC to CONUS flights pass right by Alaska.

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

All these little reactors need HALEU fuel… which of course is only made in quantity in Russia.

DOE is going to have to spend billions to build infrastructure to support these efforts. Regulating Centrus and figure out how to transport UF6 around.

U.S. Air Force selects fast microreactor for nuclear power pilot

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