!britishcolumbia@lemmy.ca
News, highlights and more relating to this great province!
We'd locate it where earthquakes - those not caused by fracking - have been historically very rare.
That's just room-temperature-IQ smart.
Also, Nuke plants are pretty resilient, as long as they aren't hit with a massive quake and then a massive tsunami.
Also, Nuke plants historically release LESS radioactive material over their lifetime than a coal plant; and it's not even close. Go look.
I'm pro nuclear and pro renewable. Maybe there'd be appetite for one in the interior but I live in the lower mainland and don't see how it could be done here (politics, unceded territory etc).
I'm on board. Good luck with the general population...
I would. Hell yeah! I honest-to-god want an SMR in my actual neighborhood just to have direct heat from a radiator water loop during the winter.
m not sure if we're allowed to ask questions on this sub. It seems mostly news articles but I figured I'd give it a go.
I think we could use more text posts :)
Me. Give me that plutonium green power please.
Not super into the plutonium kind. Would prefer one of those modular liquid salt deals the conservatives were pushing last election... but less moronic. See now that I think on how these clowns can't care for a cat maybe we shouldn't get a nuclear plant. Not because nuclear is bad.
Which type of reactor is that?
I know there one that will have a salt melt and encapsulate the nuclear rods in case of an overload event, but that's a containment measure and would still need a radioactive element such as plutonium for the process to work.
They were barge built, towed thorium salt nuclear reactors that would be build in a shipyard and towed to site. Most designs for thorium reactor use uranium doping to kick off the reactor after wich its self feeding. It comes with a salt plug in the botton of the reactor that will allow the fuel to drain out of the reactor core if there is a case of overheating. The safety bonus to these things is they have many passive means of self-moderation and self-snuffing if something isnt right. Im not a fan of on the water with a reactor. The chances that maintenance will get ignored is not insignificant. The terms of the deal with the company also both sucked and introduced extra risk.
Not from BC, but I've long thought that existing hydroelectric dam sites are perfect locations for nuclear plants.
I'm retired now, but I'd have jumped at the chance to work in a nuclear plant or supporting industry at Gardiner or E.B. Campbell Dam and live on the shores of the associated lakes or in a nearby community. Saskatchewan is already a major source of uranium and could stand to add refinement, use, and storage (put the waste right back into the geologically stable mines it came from).
On that last note, done right, the waste storage could be right on-site. That's what's happening in many cases anyway, and most hydroelectric dams are located away from major population centres and are geologically stable.
Ontario is already like 40% nuclear. BC has regulations against nuclear technology in all forms as a non-nuclear province. They disallow hosting of missiles (not that we have any) and building of any power plants.
That being said, it's probably time to take a good look at those regulations because they were probably designed in the 50s and we've built several generations of impeccably safe reactors since then.
Post-Fukushima improvements incorporate a lot of proofing against natural disasters in addition to even more passive nuclear safety. The Americans used the opportunity of the overhaul to ask for reactors to be designed to withstand artillery strikes and high levels of damage (read: deliberate plane crashes) without melting down.
Post-Fukushima improvements incorporate a lot of proofing against natural disasters in addition to even more passive nuclear safety.
The reactors we use in Canada are also already ridiculously safe compared to most
The worst thing a CANDU reactor has done was accidentally produce enough tritium for the Indians to build a proper Teller-Ulam nuke. No meltdowns.
It's widely known that there is less radiation near a nuclear plant. The reason is that it is heavily regulated and also the walls back random radiation from other sources.
I would gladly see those shipping container sized mini nuclear plants scattered around my entire region. Super-safe, impossible to melt down, can be installed into an underground bunker completely out of sight, and good for close to two decades of power. Have them all feed into the same grid with 50% overprovisioning, and such a network could be almost blackout-proof. Even if a major transmission pole goes down, there would be enough units installed within the affected area to keep it energized, even if it browns out. Install smart electrical panels that can communicate with the closest unit, and any brownout can have nonessential circuits in homes get temporarily shut off to lighten the load.
Pebble bed reactors? Yeah those things look awesome. They could have one for each major neighborhood of a decent sized city for independent power
I'm not concerned about the plant safety measures, but I am concerned that at some point down the line budget cuts will happen and upkeep or replacement will be postponed. Politicians don't listen to scientists enough.
Ontario has proven that they don't really fuck around with nuclear safety. We've had tons of different governments over the life spans of our reactors and not a single one of them would think twice about fucking with the safety or overall funding of our nuclear infrastructure.
The main issue with reactors is not their running over time, but generally the amount of money and engineering required to build the plant initially is a huge upfront cost with a massive cost over time to pay for the skilled labor. A lot of European reactors fell massively behind schedule because the labor would take shortcuts, causing structural issues, requiring more money to be put into the project to rectify problems like that. The most precarious time for a nuclear plant is during construction.
I guess I wouldn't mind it
To hell with the power it generates how about those sweet long term high skilled jobs? Granted I could do without the yearly influx of outage workers but if that ends up being CANDU then not so much of a problem.