The reactor meant to showcase nuclear’s comeback keeps hitting problems
US regulators have issued a warning to a nuclear project critical to Donald Trump’s efforts to revive the industry, after a contractor fell into a reactor cavity and a bundle of fuel rods nearly tipped over during refueling.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/safety-concerns-cloud-americas-flagship-nuclear-restart/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
28 replies
Is that reactor built by the same guys that botched the reflecting pool?
Probably oil and gas sabotage.
Oh, where the fuck have we heard this shit before? Seems a little higher stakes than a reflecting pool, and yet here we are.
What's especially bad about this is that if done right, nuclear is not a bad option. It's safer than coal or gas. But if done poorly, it will absolutely not only kill us all, but any mistakes get INSTANT news coverage and are made to sound as bad as they possibly can be because hte public is wrongly terrified about nuclear. (Some fear is justified - keep me away from high voltage stuff, and nuclear stuff. But people are trained to do those jobs. Well, not in this corrupt instance, but in general)
This is why people don't like nuclear. Not because it's safe when handled properly, but because humans do fuck things up, and corruption, and... I mean look at this!
Right, this is what drives me up a fucking wall about the horseshoe types. I hear people talking about how I should think it’s a good thing that turnip opened up nuclear energy again. But his incompetence and grift will ensure it lives up to all the worst public fears about it. It’s going to set back nuclear progress immeasurably.
Probably the point of this kakistoctacy though, keep the oil prices up…
Good thing nobody screws up oil and spills it into the environment…
I can not like two things at the same time.
Besides that, my energy comes from hydro and solar.
Lies! Nobody can live at that speed!
My mom said I'm special!
Well, a society with no nuclear and no oil - if we could make it just to like solar and wind and such - would be pretty damn special, so I'll say your mom is right :)
Solar is pretty good, hydro has serious ecological ramifications though. We really need to un-dam a bunch of rivers and restore salmon habitat.
That sadly is true, especially because I'm from a region that was dependent on salmon. They are trying to re establish them, though, and they made some progress. The water quality went up in the last decades and more and more possibilities for them to "climb" have been established. There have been several adult salmons in the last few years, but it's not like the population grew back. We do have a growing beaver population though, which is another success. So yes, hydro has its downsides, but it's not like you could build a nuclear power plant into a natural river delta either.
Oh well, I'm sure nobody will miss Michigan.
Okay, where's the kakistocracy...
Ah, there it is.
I think Holtec mostly just makes storage containers for spent fuel. They're not exactly simple, but orders of magnitude less complex than running a plant.
Tipping Nuclear Rod seems like Homer Simpson's level of blunder.
Nuclear is a great option to assist the transition to renewables, and for places that wind and solar aren't viable, but fucking hell not when it's handing a contract to unqualified morons.
Men will do everything but switch to renewable energy sources.
There's no need to gender this particular brand of idiocracy
Nuclear is amazing. It is absolutely one of our greatest energy sources we have, and it is green. It has the ability to be at peak operation 24/7 in 99% of weather, at night, on cloudy days, on windless days.
I think solar and wind energy is amazing and needs to be put up everywhere, but until we're there, nuclear has the ability to transform our energy use.
Well, yeah if we had bet more on nuclear two decades ago and kept building them, this would have been relevant.
But now renewables are expanding at a rate faster than nuclear power ever did, and unlike nuclear the growth rate is not flattening out yet. I don’t see how nuclear is much more than an irrelevant distraction when it comes to new energy production (existing is another matter, please don’t shut them down).
The base load problem is essentially solved IMO. Just a few years ago the duck curve was made to be insurmountable, and now it’s basically fully solved. Long term months long storage is also partially solved for colder regions where they are the most relevant.
But most importantly, this all ties into all the work we have to do to decarbonise industry. We have to make a lot of hydrogen and build a lot of electrical industrial heat production (which comes with free energy storage). Modern gas power plants are already hydrogen ready. We just need to build lots and lots of hydrogen electrolysis plants (for steel and ammonia production) near the gas power plants, and put some aside to use during dunkelflaute. That means many places already have much of the infrastructure needed to balance 100% renewables.
As dumb as Germanys shut down of nuclear has been, I think their strategy will be considered brilliant in 30 years time. The reason they have relied so much on gas is they need a that gas for the industry they specialised in anyway. The trick now is just to transition them to hydrogen and electric heating. There are already factories and fertiliser plants with on-site hydrogen production. It has started.
I just would like to point out that China is putting up stable reactors in less than 7 years span. https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-rate-of-nuclear-construction
I do think we need every egg in this basket to hatch though, and honestly our main focus should be renewables as you said. But nuclear is just so damn reliable. Besides a reactor can last 75+ years. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think
Nuclear is also incredibly energy efficient. If you were able to power 100.00% of an 82 year life completely on nuclear, the fuel needed for that is about the size of a soda can. https://cna.ca/2019/06/25/your-lifetime-used-fuel-would-fit-in-a-soda-can-want-proof/
I absolutely love nuclear, I think it's such a cool energy source. And it brings together so many disciplines of industry and engineering. But I am also a huge proponent of decentralization, and I recognize that nuclear plants are the epitome of central, state and corporate owned, need high security and expertise to run. Whereas, solar and wind once made can be community owned, individually owned, off grid, etc. I think there's pros to a multi layered approach.
It has basically the same next-century issues like oil.
Can you back up claims like that please? I don't think nuclear energy is causing Earth to copy Venus' atmosphere (exaggeration on scale of course).
Not to mention, nuclear is GREAT for reliable baseline load. Pair that with renewable sources (which in many locations tend to be bursty) and grid-scale batteries/supercapacitors/some other energy-storage mechanism, and you’ve got a zero-carbon electric grid.
The nuclear industry failing to properly account for safety risks? I'm shocked!
The nuclear industry itself is just an excersize in failing to account for long term risk.
Is there a reason why you believe this?
Maybe awareness of recent history