Re: power shortages

On 8/03/2024 8:22 pm, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 3/8/24 07:40, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Thu, 07 Mar 2024 07:13:56 -0800) it happened John Larkin
<jl@997PotHill.com> wrote in <h8mjui5kf50de3tkplpf1e12k12r8dgl58@4ax.com>:
>

>
 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amid-explosive-demand-america-is-running-out-of-power/ar-BB1jtM69
>
Increasing demand and declining reliable supply could put people in
the dark.

>
Yesterday I was reading Netherlands gov has decided to build 4 new nuclear power plants.
They still have to find locations for 3, what if next doors?? ??

 These are planned to be the --now old-fashioned-- Westinghouse
design? Big installations that need ten years to build?
 I wonder if it wouldn't be better to start an industry of
small modular reactors. Tens of megawatts rather than hundreds,
Something that could fit on a barge, or a train, transported
where it's needed, and up and running in months rather than
years.

Except that they don't exist yet. The technology that could create small modular reactors does exist. The production lines that could churn them out in months doesn't and would have to be built, and only after the modular reactors themselves had been designed.
The small reactors that go into nuclear submarines and nuclear powered aircraft carriers were designed a long time ago under very different constraints.
If they really were going to produce cheaper electric power than wind turbines and solar cells, somebody probably would have designed them by now. In fact a few people have, but the designs haven't been attractive enough get the kind of start-up capital required, and probably never will be.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney