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Modular Micro-Reactors – The Future of Nuclear Energy?

Illinois EnergyProf · 168.7K views · 2020-08-26 · 20:38

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Overview

Professor Ruzic explains modular micro-reactors: self-contained nuclear units with passive safety whose fuel lasts about 20 years. He covers their use for process and district heat and where they can compete with diesel generation.

On Hacker News

Recommended as a clear technical explanation of micro-reactor fuel, safety and economics, from a channel HN trusts on nuclear topics.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2020–2021

Topics

Nuclear power & fusion
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nuclear powermicro-reactorspassive safetyprocess heatdecarbonization

What people said

vermontdevil · 2020-10 · Strong recommendation

You should watch this video (and several others) of this professor, David Ruzic from Uni of Illinois This video he talks about the economics of nuclear plant. [LINK] This video, he talks about modular micro-nuclear reactor [VIDEO] His videos are great. Worth your time.

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eigenhombre · 2020-09 · Recommendation

If you have 20 minutes, the video linked in the comments of the earlier HN post is quite informative, giving a much better technical explanation than the original article: [VIDEO] It is fascinating, for example, how a slight change in the packaging of the fuel (as sand-sized pellets coated with carbon) affects the safety/stability of the design, and how resonances in the cross section for neutron absorption come into play (they broaden at higher temperatures, dampening rather than enhancing the overall reaction speed, as temperatures rise).

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PopeDotNinja · 2020-09 · Recommendation

Think of smaller nuclear reactors as an option for places where renewables might not make sense, like in mining. Building power generation that costs 10x some renewable source will never make sense. However, building small scale nuclear as replacement for onsite diesel generators could make a whole lot of sense. Illinois Energy Prof has a good video on this => [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Illinois EnergyProf, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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