Nuclear News Update

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Westinghouse has announced the AP300, a Small Modular Reactor based on the company’s AP1000 technology.

Here’s the product information sheet.

14 thoughts on “Nuclear News Update”

  1. Very impressive. By the way, that 300 MW is enough to run about 850, 350KW super chargers. How many will it take to supply 270,000,000 cars including the 4,600,000 Class 8 Trucks on the road by 2035?

  2. “How many will it take to supply 270,000,000 cars including the 4,600,000 Class 8 Trucks on the road by 2035?”

    Better start making nice with the countries which supply Uranium, since the Swamp Creatures don’t like mining in the US. Let’s see — that would be Russia. Probably need to make nice with the country that will supply most of the electronic & piping components. That would be China. And then we better hope that South Korea is prepared to supply the heavy duty steel in exchange for Bidenbucks.

  3. Just off of the top of my head, given that the regime hates the idea of energy being available in any form, there are not going to be a lot of these built here, plus the difficulties that Gavin Longmuir cites. But if there are some they will for sure not be located in Leftist states. Can you imagine the screaming if such was proposed in California or New York?

    However, if only a few are built, it strikes me that it would be something worth consideration in free states such as Texas, Florida, etc. to give them an energy advantage in the hard times to come.

    Subotai Bahadur

  5. When I read the brochure, it mentioned localized production. I assume this means the components for the Chinese reactors are built in China. Has anyone looked on Alibaba or Banggood, you might find a smoking deal on “genuine” Westinghouse AP1000 with free shipping?

  6. Does the American total include those a previous Secretary of State sold?

    Surely these uranium totals are important – is there any chance that more would be discovered if a need was shown?

    I don’t think the only free states are the two big ones – how about the whole middle of the country?

  7. A lot, possibly most, of mining in America is done by foreign companies and investors and always has been, going back to the various gold rushes. Mining is hard work, why bother if you can make an AP and have a billion dollar company for as long as the suckers keep pouring money in.

    Back in the 50’s-60’s, the Western mountains and deserts were infested with characters toting Geiger counters, “prospecting” for uranium, usually as innocent of geological knowledge as a newborn babe. I doubt they found it all. As with any mining, it all comes down to how a lot of details intersect with the prices. Higher prices mean more mining. As it is, the cost of fuel for a nuclear plant is considered negligible. The capital cost overwhelms every other cost.

  8. MCS: “As with any mining, it all comes down to how a lot of details intersect with the prices.”

    It does not all come down to that — at least not in the US. The Swamp Creatures don’t like mining (or manufacturing, for that matter). Icky, dirty, jobs for white males. They think it is much better & “cleaner” for what we need to show up at the ports magically, in exchange for freshly-printed Bidenbucks. Just think about how hard Biden*’s handlers have worked to cut oil production in the US. They certainly don’t want anyone mining uranium, and they have the regulations and legal challenges to make sure no-one can afford to invest in US uranium — regardless of the price!

  10. well south africa, was one, (we weren’t friendly with the boers because we liked afrikaans,) along with gold and diamonds and platinum it was a major resource, the late wllbur smith, who was a liberal standard bearer, understood the dynamic in his courtney saga, particularly the rage and golden lion chapters, as he saw the soviet influence on the spear of the nation, the anc’s militant arm
    one minor footnote withe the uranium one inbroglio, was it’s transport arms, which was run by a south african diplomat, rod fisk, he passed away around 2009, and his computer was found to unrecoverable, where this material was shipped is as good a guess as mine,
    another place that supplied the early nuclear fuel is the congo, and well we know what a mess that place has become in the last 30 years,

  12. I’m not sure I’m as worried about where uranium ore is mined as I am about where uranium isotopes are enriched. As far as I know, for instance, there are very few centrifuges of required precision spinning in Kazakhstan.

    For that matter, I wonder which countries are cooking up how much of other valuable isotopes of heavy elements: Plutonium, Thorium, Americium…

  14. If you look at the periodic table, you’ll see uranium is on a special row, the actinides, at the bottom right below the lanthanides, otherwise known as rare earths. The reason these are in this position is to signify that the chemical characteristics of each series are nearly identical making it very difficult to separate them from each other, requiring lots of nasty chemistry and producing lots of toxic and hard to neutralize waste. Hence, China’s advantage in the rare earths because they can just throw all that stuff in the nearest creek.

    When uranium is mined, the ore is processed somewhere near the mine into a concentrate called yellow cake. This is transported to where the final processing will be done.

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