Washington is starting a new Nuclear reactor. Glad to see this.
As the Northwest region of the United States pursues a future clean energy grid, it is clear it will need new sources of dependable, carbon-free power,” said Bob Schuetz, chief executive of Energy Northwest
Andy
In the farther northern latitudes nuclear is going to be necessary. I see my fuel bills, and they are nothing on Canadian usage. Nuclear clearly is economical up there.
Good news for the advancement of better power sources, and good news for the whole small reactor area which makes me happy now that BEP owns Westinghouse.
(This reactor is from a different company, but that lead me to the nuclear regulatory webpage listing reactors and Westinghouse’s reactor has completed a LOT of reviews.)
Right DL, while nuclear isn’t perfect it has a lot of good things going for it and who knows what is coming next in innovation.
Andy
Energy Northwest has signed an agreement with the goal of having an advanced small nuclear reactor producing power in Eastern Washington by the end of 2030.
IMO it can not be done by end of 2030 because that means 6.5 years from concept to actual power production.
I don’t doubt that Jaagu with all the overcosts and permitting that goes on but one thing going for it is Hanford. That is an area that has a lot of experience with Nuclear reactors.
Andy
LMAO
What to say? LOL
I have a friend working at Hanford. She is a fellow artist. She does chemistry work there. Tests.
OFW
Oh well if you have a fellow artist working there that is different. I hope her painting turns out beautiful. There are many people working there and a lot more that used to work there.
Andy
Pacific Northwest is famous for low cost hydropower from the Bonneville Power Administration. They have so much surplus they have been tearing down dams to let the salmon spon.
I wonder how environmental groups will react to additional nuclear power up there. They are violent and have been known to burn suvs.
Andy,
I was assuming you knew some of the history of Hanford.
Not matching the snark but if you know the history of Hanford it is not a posterchild for nukes.
I’m reading a book in Hanford. Its all about plutonium.
I think our nuclear power plants are all enriched uranium. How about plutonium reactors? Possible? Practical?
Everyone knows the Hanford site is a Superfund. I assume we all know someone that has worked up there Leap since it has been a nuclear site since the 40’s. But they thought they had the site cleaned up until recently when they found another radiation seep. Bechtel has been working on it for years. So yes I know a lot about the Hanford site.
Andy
What is the process of turning uranium into plutonium?
The answer is simple: it is produced by the nuclear reaction from the uranium used as fuel. In this reaction, uranium-238 captures a neutron and transforms into uranium-239. In turn, the uranium-239 converts to neptunium-239 by losing an electron. Then, in the same way, the neptunium-239 transforms into plutonium-239.
Is plutonium better than uranium?
Yes, exactly so. While the uranium is fissioning inside the reactor, some neutrons are caught by the non-fissioning isotope of uranium, which is 99% of it. And some small percentage of that converts to plutonium. Plutonium is as fissionable or more fissionable than the uranium isotope that is the useful isotope.
Plutonium-239 is primarily used as a fuel to power nuclear reactors . In fact, it enters into the composition of MOX fuel – mixed uranium and plutonium oxide. By combining the Pu 239 produced by nuclear reactors with depleted uranium, MOX can be used to fabricate one new fuel assembly from every 8 used fuel assemblies.
Hanford is a good location for something like that. There is definitely favorable political climate for it there. And while the proposed location at the Columbia Generating Station is only ten or so miles out of town, it feels more like 50. There are also robust transmission facilities.
The book makes clear that Hanford is about converting common uranium-238 to plutonium. It was plutonium used in the Nagasaki bomb and in the demo in the Oppenheimer movie.
Uranium-235 is the fissionable form of uranium, but enriching uranium to fissionable concentration was slow and very costly. The Hiroshima bomb was uranium.
Plutonium made modern nuclear weapons practical. Quantities of uranium bombs would have been far more limited.
The US has something like 106 or 103 nuclear plant sites. Some talk about there is no where else to add sites. I do not know if that is a “not in my back yard” thing.
The talks years ago used to add we will build more on the prior existing sites.
It isn’t even remotely cleaned up. The full scope of the problem hasn’t even been identified. No one reading this will be alive when they finish working on the cleanup.
Your right Syke, I misunderstood. It looks like a location at the site was finished.
Andy
As everyone knows Hanford site is an ex-nuclear bomb making site and some old test nuclear reactors site. All the nuclear reactors were shutdown over 30 -50 years ago and all the reactor engineers are retired or dead. Currently Hanford Site is in the cleanup stage with WTP (Waste Treatment Plant) the biggest cleanup project.
There is still an active power reactor at Hanford: the Columbia Generating Station, which is where the SMR will be located.
Without Hanford, the Tri-cities would still be tiny agricultural communities. Many residents or their parents moved there to work on the reservation, so nuclear power is generally seen as favorable in that area.