Comment Re: An endless supply of nuclear waste. (Score 1) 120
That's a novel solution
No "novelty" to it, the US Navy has been building and operating high quality reactors non stop for 70 years. Their reactors can quickly spool up or down. Their reactors are designed to take abuse. Ever seen that explosion they set off near a new ship in sea trials? The infrastructure to build and deliver these is already in place. So is the training facility to operate and maintain them.
but I think most countries would be reluctant to allow the Navy to own and operate such critical infrastructure.
Not my place to push for proposals in another country. But it'll work here because we are already doing it.
The fuel isn't the only issue anyway.
The US Navy has taken 562 cores critical, built and operated 273 reactors, and has 99 on ships now. I've not heard any problems about fuel.
And as always, it comes back to "why bother?" We have a cheaper solution, available now, with no issues beyond the usual NIMBYism. Maybe if we get to 95% renewable and there is a real problem that nuclear could solve cost effectively, we could look at it again.
There is no combination of renewables that work 24/7 which means you need a MASSIVE storage system able to supply at least half the country for a week because bad weather happens. You would need extremely high power HVDC interconnects nation wide. My eyes cross trying to imagine the inverter setup able to deal with 5,000 terrawatt/hours in a year. And all of this needs some redundancy because shit happens.
Add in all of the windmills and solar panels, did you say something about cost? lol