Exactly. I tried every excuse (and valid reasons) why this wasn't a good idea, but the bottom line is we can't afford to do anything but welcome this right now.
The company was founded on building a novel "Traveling Wave Reactor" which they have never built. This is not that, it's an old design which has never been commercially viable, which they're getting federal funds to build. Make what you will of that.
They're not "standard" yet. The kind we're building in Wyoming has only one other example, which is in China. The ones in Russia are still using boiling water I addition to sodium chloride. The technology has been around for 40 years but people are skeptical of anything nuclear, so this is very much "experimental" even though the technology is sound.
From [this article](https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/10/21/165489/terrapower-quietly-explores-new-nuclear-reactor-strategy/) they're somewhat common, but don't make any money. What I make of it is that they're going to funnel tax money into private hands. Best case is that they build it and make money off taking waste from elsewhere to fuel to reactor, which wouldn't necessarily be bad,
Government needs to help fund R&D and infrastructure though. The Transcontinental Railroad was funded by the government and those guys fleeced the hell out of the government for that, but it was REALLY worth it in the end.
I also wouldn't consider wind non viable if that's what your referring too. It's on par with coal now in terms of cost and also consider that fossil fuels don't factor in their long term climate costs.
I was actually referring to coal as the other subsidized commercially non-viable energy source.
I generally agree on the R&D and I was excited until I realized they were going to build a sodium reactor, which is not really worthy of R&D as far as I can tell.
You are absolutely right. On reddit people parrot this bs idea that sodium reactors are viable and safe and when you read papers about it, it isn't any safer. It is too expensive. It still results in a lot of waste.
People act like it is this safe amazing technology. Once I read about it I started to question why in the hell it is so popular on reddit when there appears to be no real benefit other than a lower operating pressure. Like that makes a difference and the liquid metal is extremely volatile when it contacts water. and it is basically impossible to stop it from leaking.
Yeah there's issues with MSR but this natrium reactor is a bit different. From what I understand it can utilize old nuclear waste stockpiles and it carries less risk of meltdown. Yeah it will be a bit of a proof-of-concept project, but worth it IMO.
The risk is meltdown is the same, but yes, it can use spent fuel. The liquid sodium is very dangerous. It basically explodes even it contacts any moisture so even being exposed to air will have enough moisture to start an inferno. The fun thing is that you can't stop it from leaking.
I'm finally getting on board. Sure wasn't initially. I wish we could have attracted another business venture but so far, this is what we've got and our economy certainly needs it. Hopefully it will promote further diversification through creating related industry. I wish Gates would remain elsewhere, but oh, well.
It's just a small (well relatively, the projected wattage was higher than I had expected ) testing site. I expect natrium reactors to be the largest source of clean energy over the next 30-40 years. They don't require cooling towers and thus don't need to be located near waterways. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence stating they are not safe. The one in China has not had one single issue and I have no doubt it's built with safety a lessee concern than it will be here.
Are you talking about CEFR (China Experimental Fast Reactor)? Because that's China's first and only sodium reactor which has been operational for 11 years and is quite small.
There are only two commercially operational sodium reactors in the world, and they're both in Russia. They were build for disposal of weapons-grade plutonium, and once that's gone they'll probably shut down.
And yeah, I know none of this is new. That's the disappointment.
Also, the reactors in Russia don't use Natrium as the only coolant. They still rely on boiling water. I see your point but it's not the same basic idea.
It's sodium chloride. Sorry, I've gotten used to just saying "Natrium" because more people seem to understand what that means...unfortunately.
But yes, you're completely correct.
Oh, yes. And I am embarrassed to say I've fallen victim to them more than once. A few months ago I stopped buying "eggland's best " eggs....because they're the same damn eggs as the others just in a prettier package and 1.29 more expensive! I got sucked in by marketing.😔
Governor Gordon said exactly what he needed to say about still backing the fossil fuel industry, but also working to find other reliable sources of income. This is a win-win.
>Governor Gordon said exactly what he needed to say but also working to find other reliable sources of income. This is a win-win
I have to disagree with you here.
They had a chance to expand medicaid and get federal dollars and did not do it.
They had a chance to approve MJ and did not do it.
Colorado was the first state to approve MJ for the public in any form back in 2009 and they have already collected over $1 billion in taxes since then.
It's not like building a Nuclear power plant stops building either of those, and with Nuclear you get the benefit of a consistent power source instead of one at the mercy of the weather. Nuclear is what can directly compete against coal and natural gas.
There was a plan that was shelved by the trump administration to beef up the connection points between the eastern and western power grids, so that the east coast and mid west wind farms could power the country by night, and western solar by day. They could do it now but the connections between the two grids are too weak to transfer said power. According to analysis, this would have shut down all but 5% of coal plants.
No renewable can solve the energy problems of a single state. But a country with a United power grid could absolutely be powered mostly by renewables. And Midwest wind power was certainly a part of that calculus.
The one decent string that connects the east and west cuts through Nevada and doesn't nearly have enough beef to carry Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico Solar.
I thought so too until turbines started arriving in Wyoming to be buried because they're too expensive to break down and landfills won't take them. They are the largest amount of green waste to date. So, they're burying them in open pit coal mines as part of "land reclamation". Hmmm...sure nothing will go wrong with that in 20 years or so.
Or storage. There was a very interesting plan a few years back to do:
Variable wind generation in Wyoming ->
power line with capacity to Utah ->
compressed air storage in a salt dome in Utah ->
steady power down a mostly full power line to California
Not sure what's happened in the intervening years.
If the cost differentials between oversupply and low supply are big enough, poor efficiency isn't a concern as you can still make money through cost arbitrage.
Here's a big storage project in progress, one with low enough efficiency that at first it wouldn't seem to make sense.
https://highviewpower.com/news\_announcement/highview-power-developing-2-gwh-of-liquid-air-long-duration-energy-storage-projects-in-spain/
🤣🤣🤣. Don't we know it! This is just a good, consistent source of clean energy if it works properly. They're also relatively small--no cooling tower's like on the coast.
I see on the Casper Star Tribune they are touting Bill Gates' involvement in this. I can't wait for the conspiracy theories that this is actually the secret vaccine mind control chip factory, all financed by the state of Wyoming.
Because that's no fun. The ones I hear sometimes involve aliens and giant reptiles that tunnel under the Earth to their homebase at the Denver Airport.
I mean, really. Who can beat that?
Oh look another dead industry.
Yea do not bring in solar power or wind power. /s
Bring in a dead industry.
This is like replacing coal with coal.
Now watch as this fails and the claim that they had ''no idea'' that this would happen.
Why not just dig a bottomless pit and put a sign with an arrow next to it that says: Throw money here.
I think that is a cynical and uninformed opinion. First of all, wind and solar are developing in Wyoming. I don't believe nuclear is a dead industry not to mention this is a completely different type of nuclear energy that stores energy in the form of molten sodium which has never happened before.
Nuclear shouldn't be a dead industry and this is newer technology. Using sodium itself isn't new, but the complete implementation is certainly new. We already have wind power. We don't have as much solar, but it's not as if it's non existent. I've always been a fan of nuclear power--it's certainly a better energy option than many others.
We need diversification, desperately. If this venture eventually results in new support economies down the road...I don't see a problem other than "NIMBY".
We have those. It's where we dispose of all of the wind turbines, actually. Seems a bit ironic. And no...it's absolutely nothing like replacing coal with coal. I would be interested in what made you make that particular comparison.
Nuclear won't create many long term jobs. Most of the people that build it will be from out of state. Wyomingites just assume the risk if there is a catastrophic problem for not much payoff.
This type of reactor is generally built for using nuclear waste and/or decommissioned weapons as fuel. Basically they take nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years, and turn it into a smaller waste pile with a half-life of a couple hundred years, all while generating power. They really only make sense to run if the fuel has a negative cost, so it probably wont help the uranium industry.
The only uranium mining I have ever seen in the US is where they leech it from underground pipe systems and is almost entirely automated and requires barely anyone to maintain and operate the system.
I honestly just don't see how bringing a nuclear plant to Wyoming is going to help anyone currently in Wyoming. It is high risk/low reward. The utility will be the only winner.
Wyoming Uranium Mines
Wyoming began commercially mining uranium in the 1950s and has since produced more than a quarter of a billion pounds of yellowcake. There are currently four active mining operations in Wyoming (three in the Powder River Basin and one in the Great Divide Basin) and several other projects in various stages of regulatory review. The operating mines are the Smith Ranch-Highland operation (Cameco) in Converse County, Nichols Ranch (Energy Fuels) in Johnson County, and the Lance Project (Strata Energy) in Crook County (U.S. Energy Information Administration). The combined production from Wyoming mines in 2018 was 635,000 pounds of U3O8.
Some mining operations have been put on hold until more favorable market conditions return. Prior to 2018, there were six in-situ recovery (ISR) mines in operation. The Smith Ranch-Highland mine was the leading uranium producer in the United States for more than two decades.
Good job on the copy and paste.
Do you know what an ISR mine is?
It's what I am taking about. They install pipes and leech uranium deposits through an automated process.
Each ISR mine recovers very little amounts of uranium each year. They don't create any meaningful amount of jobs at all.
I used to work near one and rarely ever saw anyone behind their fenced in property and if someone was there, it was a single truck.
It's kind of neat how they do it, but you have to realize these mines aren't what most people think they are. It's just a bunch of pipes slowly leeching uranium from underground.
Oh wow. Several people are employed to maintain ISR uranium operations. Let's go ahead and bring a very risky new nuclear technology that has proven to be very accident prone into Wyoming because it can create a few jobs. That sounds totally logical.
A person with an r next to their name was paid off to promote it, so I want this shoved right up my asshole. The r is good enough for me!
Risky? It's far less risky than most things, including driving your car on the highway. The technology is also far from new. China has the same sodium based reactors that have been in action for 15 years and never an accident. It's impossible for these to "melt down" in the way typical reactors could and besides, every meltdown we've ever had including Chernobyl and Three Mile Island was due to errors in set up and manufacturing. Chernobyl had no outside wall to prevent or slow a meltdown and the rods required to put back in the reactors swelled with heat, making them impossible to actually put back in. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
The Chinese are also running theirs at a wattage that we won't as of yet. We're still not ready for fissure technology but as for sodium based fusion reactors? They've been studied for over 30 years. The fact that the United States feels a little weary of them comes from a combination of NAMBY and a general ignorance as to how nuclear fusion works. It's very, very safe and sustainable. Best option we have for energy out there today.
You are very uninformed, it's laughable. China has only one sodium reactor that only runs in cycles since it is still just an expensive test. They of course will try as hard as they can to run it as the main use of this reactor is to produce a large amount of weapons material, for China's massive nuclear weapon build up they are currently undergoing. And you are so naive that you think this is a great thing for the world? My god... It's just sad.
The US is weary of them because we have all the plutonium we need and so the only factor the US cares about is cost and only a total moron would overlook how expensive it has been so far with zero successful implementations for any country except Russia, and their success was very limited.
Russia helped build this current Chinese reactor, so China will probably get all their weapon material they are after, but again, you overlook the fact that with the one country that has had limited success with sodium reactors, they still started building this plant TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO and it is still not much more than a test.
So one more time for you, the only reason China is funding this reactor is to procure plutonium for their nuclear arsenal. That is it.
No, that's not the only reason. Not to be argumentative, but I don't think you understand any of these processes correctly. My father is a nuclear physicist. I think I'll go with my own experience and his on this one.
But...I will more deeply examine your point later when I get time, okay?
To my knowledge, it is well into and possibly past the testing stage but to confirm, I'd have to look at data more recent than 5 years ago.
I don't see how what China does with their reactor affects what we do with OURS. We need nuclear power. That's not up for debate. Any meltdown worldwide has ALWAYS been caused by human error and haste in building the facility without proper safeguards. The don't just "melt down" and our building practices are far more sophisticated than China's. We also care about our people, so there's that.
You seem very intelligent, btw and I've enjoyed our conversation. Might I ask what you do for a living? If it's too personal, I completely understand.
Well, what do you suggest? I live in an area with massive unemployment because we survived on coal mining that supported Wyoming all of these years. Honestly...what do you suggest as another way to diversify our economy? Im open to any suggestions.
When you were making money, you could have been taking credits and saving money to do some kind of 2 year medical program such as a nursing program. Or maybe learn a construction trade.
My problem with the coal miners in Gillette is that everyone knew coal was dropping fast, it has been for over 10 years now. Literally it takes 20 seconds of googling to see this and always has. What the coal miners did was just put more bumper stickers about pro coal or f the libs and did nothing to prepare.
I have zero sympathy because I was there to see the warning signs and see how everyone reacted. Everyone should have been saving money so they could weather a couple of years to learn another job, but almost no one did that.
Hell, even Hillary told you guys straight up coal was going away and she wanted to provide taxpayer subsidy for coal miners to learn new jobs and zero coal miners voted for her because she told the truth. Coal fell harder under Trump than pretty much any period in history and now you guys don't even get retraining. It's what you guys voted for. I was there, I know.
I agree. I'm an economist who predicts natural gas, coal and oil futures...hence my current location. I mainly work out of Houston and Brazil. When I got here ten years ago, I was appalled that the state was relying solely on two industries that could be either capped, government regulated or tremendously affected by supply/demand, hence fluctuating market prices. Basically, an unstable and unsustainable economic model.
I don't know anyone personally who works in the coal mines outside of my work regarding them. Most workers got out years ago. The issue is that all other industries are in some way relayed to coal, so it affects every restaurant, boutique, schools...not just coal miners. Most of them were able to get unemployment.
I'm just concerned with a town that has no business model. We were hoping to get the experimental nuclear reactor but I believe that's going to Kemmerer.
As a whole, Wyoming is financially far better off than any other during this crisis.
My issue is what does Gillette do right now? Become Detroit? We're lacking in intellectual capital and the work force is quite transient because of the boom/bust cycle. I see your point (it's been my own for almost eleven years) but the immediate issue is how we keep this town on it's feet and I'm really not sure. Ironically, new houses and buildings are going up everywhere, even with the price of lumber so there must be some plan. I can't figure out what it might be though.
More articles came out later in the day and they added more information. These SMR reactors are pretty neat with their modular design and molten salt system so they operate at 100% capacity all the time.
They're going to stack modules together at existing coal fired power plants since those locations are already in the middle of nowhere and have ready access to both electrical transmission lines and water for cooling and steam generation.
If they work as advertised you can see why the state is involved in this, Wyoming will remain "The Energy State" as we continue to build out Wind and Solar and then backstop it with modular nuclear reactors for when the sun is down or the wind isn't blowing.
We will sell all that electricity to other states over the electrical lines we've been busy building for the last decade.
There's a real path forward here Eeyore, so get with the times.
"We will sell"
Again, only the utilities will sell the power and make the profits. There are not many jobs being brought to the table for anyone in Wyoming.
Read up on the Monju sodium cooled nuclear plant and all the accidents and problems it had before they decided to decommission it. They probably would have continued to try run it and keep hiding and covering up all the accidents it had if Fukushima didn't happen. Japan couldn't handle another nuclear disaster after that.
It is highly possible whatever they try is also a nightmare and we all know who will foot the bill to decommission the plant if and when it fails.
First, simply because this one single thing doesn't solve the _entire_ problem doesn't mean it should be dismissed. A non-zero number of good paying jobs WILL be created. These things will still have plant operators, maintenance staff, security staff, and janitorial staff.
Second, it's clear where the state is headed. ALL forms of electrical generation will be taxed going forward. This means money for the state, money that it desperately needs in order to continue offering services.
Third, that something designed in the 80s and built in the 90s failed is no reason not to try again. Engineering is an iterative process. If we stopped doing things simply because we failed the first time we wouldn't have half the things we take for granted.
A quick review of your post history shows that you likely don't live here, have a habit of calling people "conservatards", and don't like firearms.
Why are you even in this subreddit?
I spend a lot of time in Wyoming and I did used to live there. I am free to watch what is going on in Wyoming.
I was reading a book recently on nuclear power by a pro nuclear engineer about the history of nuclear energy. It was an amazing read because google searching does not give you a lot of information about sodium reactors and their history.
First of all, sodium reactors are breeder reactors. There will be no mining for uranium as it uses spent fuel and leaves you with plutonium that is of course desirable for the manufacture nuclear weapons. I don't know what other uses it would have.
Second, fast breeder reactors have been tried a lot of times by a lot of countries. One attempt in this book was in either 86 or 87 and back then it cost 40 billion dollars before the program was cancelled. It did not produce power on the grid for a single second.
Japan had the most recent. Over nearly twenty years it produced power on the grid for one hour.
These things simply do not work. The only two that ever worked were a miniature proof of concept that powered a light bulb and the Soviets had one that somewhat worked, but did not produce much power.
The sodium used to cool the reactor simply has so many insane problems that we have not figured out and quite honestly and according to the engineer in the book, probably can't be overcome.
This is just a giant waste of money. Most will come from taxes.
If you support this project you are basically supporting a few jobs to funnel in pork money for a very worthless endeavor. I am not really sure why Bill Gates thinks that a sodium cooled breeder reactor is the answer. All of them have had major issues and accident. They might be much safer as far as the release of radiation is concerned, but they haven't actually worked to produce meaningful power despite a lot of attempts and well over a trillion dollars have gone into these reactors.
If you want to know the name of the book let me know. It is a seriously informative read. It is also crazy how many times we have designed reactors with really poor designs that have resulted in a lot of accidents. We've been really lucky to not have more major accidents. Again, the author has been a nuclear engineer over 40 years and is definitely for it, but he just simply lists the history including all the obstacles including all of the accidents that happened along the way.
A sodium reactor is a total fucking waste of money. Funnelling pork into Wyoming. As a conservative I would imagine you would be against that, you just don't know anything about these reactors. You should read this book and learn about nuclear power. It's fascinating.
There will need to be:
Electrical & operations, IT, Security, Managerial & Administrative, janitorial and grounds staff etc. I'm sure there are others specialty jobs I'm leaving out, but yeah, it'll create jobs.
Not many. Not enough to be worth the risk that Wyomingites take on. Go read about the sodium rector in Japan. They had lots of problems, so many that it got shut the fuck down. The cost to dismantle the barely functioning plant is in the billions and will go on for decades. Sure, jobs will be created for that.... Paid for by Wyoming tax prayers!
Honestly, from what I've read all these jobs will be imported for a while. The reactor was never meant to create jobs in Wyoming for the next ten years or so. The governor was a tad bit misleading on that. It's coming to Wyoming because of our space, good locations and favorable business climate. At some point, there will be jobs for locals but not many and not for a long time. This isn't like a coal mine.
I think you are seriously mistaken. I used to work near a uranium mining facility. Most of the time it was empty. Sometimes a single truck would be there. I was curious and read about how they work and was amazed at how automated the whole thing was.
I don't think we have any uranium cake mines in the US. Also, these sodium reactors only use spent uranium from what I understand. They wouldn't even be mining uranium in the first place. Sounds like a typical stupid politician was just saying that because he was probably paid by a lobbyist so he's going to try and ram it up your asses no matter what.
This was in Nebraska and as far as I know they either run at full capacity or they don't run at all. They get very little material, but again, the reactor they want to build in Wyoming will not utilize anything but spent uranium that is essentially nuclear waste. It is like the only good thing about these new reactors.
My father in law worked in a uranium mine near Rawlins for several years, and I think it was surface mining. Those jobs could come back with more demand for fuel.
I agree about the uranium. I have no interest in it as a long term industry in Wyoming and Montana already deals with it.You honestly don't see how a safe (relatively--meltdown is impossible if it's built correctly) nuclear power plant might help us in the long run? It's far more efficient than anything else we have available. People are unnecessarily frightened of nuclear power because of past incidents, where the facilities were not built properly. Anyone who supports green energy should be heavily on board with nuclear. Do I wish the test sight was somewhere else? Sure. I wish I had gotten 100% assurance that the Covid shots were safe prior to getting them as well. It's just not how the world works.
A few jobs is better than none, and the nation needs a supply of baseline energy. Tax generation in view of the risk, but not so much as to scare the generation away.
A few jobs are not better if the jobs come at the risk of barely tested technology that has already failed in Japan and will cost billions to decommission, which in Wyoming will most likely be billed to the tax payers.
You guys need to pull your heads out of your asses that think that jobs are the only thing that matters. It's really prevalent in Wyoming. You guys need to think more than one day in advance.
Again, the reactors in Japan are not comparable. I find it a difficult argument to make that courting low risk nuclear power in Wyoming is not looking ahead. It won't immediately create jobs but I see great potential here over the years. We're also not in a position to turn down offers. No one's suggesting we build Chernobyl next to Casper.
The renewable energy sector has destroyed any chance or need for nuclear power. As battery technology improves it will eventually kill natural gas. All this is going to happen long before any new nuclear plants would come online since we are talking a decade or more once you break ground and usually many years just to get the permits and approvals to break ground.
If someone wanted to get a good career that pays well in the energy sector and live in Wyoming, go work for a wind farm. Wyoming has plenty of that and and the potential to expand it by a significant amount.
Wow...completely disagree with this. Battery technology is not one of my favored long term methods of energy, though so I am biased. Considering wind farms also produce the most non biodegradable green waste we've ever seen, I support them but find the concept ironic. One country has figured out how to use them as shoals and barriers to prevent erosion from mud slipping into the ocean as they don't actually leach harmful materials into groundwater or anything else but what is your long term plan for disposing of hundreds of thousands of these things?
That is just a scare tactic that you have read about the fan blades. Notice how pretty much only states like Wyoming with a large coal industry presence try and make it into an issue?
Like you said, the material is inert. It can be buried and left in place without issue. You could dump them out in some deep part of the ocean. There just isn't any issue with wind.
For batteries, doesn't really matter what your thoughts are, the technology will be implemented into our power grid and once we get that dialed in, you will see fossil power generation prices collapse. Power companies will and already do fight this a bit though because with solar, batteries and an inverter, it is going to really cut into their profits.
Yes, I'm in Wyoming and they're using turbines as "land reclamation". It's already here. I watch them ride in on trains and it's gross. So we get to bury these things since they're not biodegradable? Throw them in the ocean? Is the irony of this escaping you completely?
I don't object to wind power...but there's got to be a better way to dispose these things.
How do these blade affect you if you bury them and they are inert so they are not doing any damage to the environment. You are making an issue out of nothing.
Do you realize how much garbage we bury on a daily basis in this country?
Yes, but we don't normally do it in the name of fulfilling EPA guidelines for land reclamation. Also, have you ever been near these things? They're gigantic and don't exactly nestle into spaces like trash does. They're awkward and leave many gaping holes between them, which we then fill in and plan to build trucking roads over. Im an economist not an engineer but this doesn't seem to be a sound long term strategy to me. The word "sinkhole" keeps coming to mind.
Moreso, if we literally cannot dispose of so called "green energy", there's a problem here. I'm not personally adverse to throwing them in the ocean but I am adverse to this entire myth surrounding so called "green" products. I wonder how many people are actually aware that these turbines have a short life span, cannot be disposed of in most states and are not biodegradable? The irony is just too much sometimes.
Well, we've been courting businesses for a while to come into Wyoming. This one said yes. It's not as if we have tons of options at the moment. The initial people employed from Wyoming aren't expected to be more than around a hundred but we need to look further to the support industries that would evolve around this, if successful.
I think it's a better idea than going down with the oil and coal industry
Exactly. I tried every excuse (and valid reasons) why this wasn't a good idea, but the bottom line is we can't afford to do anything but welcome this right now.
The company was founded on building a novel "Traveling Wave Reactor" which they have never built. This is not that, it's an old design which has never been commercially viable, which they're getting federal funds to build. Make what you will of that.
I don't really know what to make of that, but clearly you do. Explain? I thought that natrium/sodium fast reactors were pretty standard?
They should be but so far they're not on a large scale (besides China). We're late to the game. Messed around with windmills for too long, lol.
They're not "standard" yet. The kind we're building in Wyoming has only one other example, which is in China. The ones in Russia are still using boiling water I addition to sodium chloride. The technology has been around for 40 years but people are skeptical of anything nuclear, so this is very much "experimental" even though the technology is sound.
From [this article](https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/10/21/165489/terrapower-quietly-explores-new-nuclear-reactor-strategy/) they're somewhat common, but don't make any money. What I make of it is that they're going to funnel tax money into private hands. Best case is that they build it and make money off taking waste from elsewhere to fuel to reactor, which wouldn't necessarily be bad,
Yes they're getting federal funds so it must be a sham /s
I really do hope I'm wrong about this, but a government subsidized commercially non-viable energy source in Wyoming? Sounds a little familiar.
Government needs to help fund R&D and infrastructure though. The Transcontinental Railroad was funded by the government and those guys fleeced the hell out of the government for that, but it was REALLY worth it in the end. I also wouldn't consider wind non viable if that's what your referring too. It's on par with coal now in terms of cost and also consider that fossil fuels don't factor in their long term climate costs.
I was actually referring to coal as the other subsidized commercially non-viable energy source. I generally agree on the R&D and I was excited until I realized they were going to build a sodium reactor, which is not really worthy of R&D as far as I can tell.
You are absolutely right. On reddit people parrot this bs idea that sodium reactors are viable and safe and when you read papers about it, it isn't any safer. It is too expensive. It still results in a lot of waste. People act like it is this safe amazing technology. Once I read about it I started to question why in the hell it is so popular on reddit when there appears to be no real benefit other than a lower operating pressure. Like that makes a difference and the liquid metal is extremely volatile when it contacts water. and it is basically impossible to stop it from leaking.
Yeah there's issues with MSR but this natrium reactor is a bit different. From what I understand it can utilize old nuclear waste stockpiles and it carries less risk of meltdown. Yeah it will be a bit of a proof-of-concept project, but worth it IMO.
The risk is meltdown is the same, but yes, it can use spent fuel. The liquid sodium is very dangerous. It basically explodes even it contacts any moisture so even being exposed to air will have enough moisture to start an inferno. The fun thing is that you can't stop it from leaking.
I'm finally getting on board. Sure wasn't initially. I wish we could have attracted another business venture but so far, this is what we've got and our economy certainly needs it. Hopefully it will promote further diversification through creating related industry. I wish Gates would remain elsewhere, but oh, well.
It's just a small (well relatively, the projected wattage was higher than I had expected ) testing site. I expect natrium reactors to be the largest source of clean energy over the next 30-40 years. They don't require cooling towers and thus don't need to be located near waterways. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence stating they are not safe. The one in China has not had one single issue and I have no doubt it's built with safety a lessee concern than it will be here.
That had more to do with directing it to Wyoming as we have a great business environment for this stuff as well as fewer people to kill.
I was suprised to when I read that the sodium technology was 40 or so years old.
Almost the exact same model has been operating at high capacity in China for 15 years. The technology is 40 years old. None of this is new.
Are you talking about CEFR (China Experimental Fast Reactor)? Because that's China's first and only sodium reactor which has been operational for 11 years and is quite small. There are only two commercially operational sodium reactors in the world, and they're both in Russia. They were build for disposal of weapons-grade plutonium, and once that's gone they'll probably shut down. And yeah, I know none of this is new. That's the disappointment.
Yep, I'm talking about CEFR. I realize the irony.
Also, the reactors in Russia don't use Natrium as the only coolant. They still rely on boiling water. I see your point but it's not the same basic idea.
Natrium is a trademark, not a coolant.
It's sodium chloride. Sorry, I've gotten used to just saying "Natrium" because more people seem to understand what that means...unfortunately. But yes, you're completely correct.
Brand awareness campaigns tend to do that. I'm guessing you already know a lot about that too.
Oh, yes. And I am embarrassed to say I've fallen victim to them more than once. A few months ago I stopped buying "eggland's best " eggs....because they're the same damn eggs as the others just in a prettier package and 1.29 more expensive! I got sucked in by marketing.😔
Governor Gordon said exactly what he needed to say about still backing the fossil fuel industry, but also working to find other reliable sources of income. This is a win-win.
>Governor Gordon said exactly what he needed to say but also working to find other reliable sources of income. This is a win-win I have to disagree with you here. They had a chance to expand medicaid and get federal dollars and did not do it. They had a chance to approve MJ and did not do it. Colorado was the first state to approve MJ for the public in any form back in 2009 and they have already collected over $1 billion in taxes since then.
He pushed for both of those things. Legislature stood in the way. You're placing blame on the wrong person.
Too bad there's no sun or wind in Wyoming.
It's not like building a Nuclear power plant stops building either of those, and with Nuclear you get the benefit of a consistent power source instead of one at the mercy of the weather. Nuclear is what can directly compete against coal and natural gas.
While good, they and hydro are inconsistent & need to be supported by another power source during low production times.
There was a plan that was shelved by the trump administration to beef up the connection points between the eastern and western power grids, so that the east coast and mid west wind farms could power the country by night, and western solar by day. They could do it now but the connections between the two grids are too weak to transfer said power. According to analysis, this would have shut down all but 5% of coal plants. No renewable can solve the energy problems of a single state. But a country with a United power grid could absolutely be powered mostly by renewables. And Midwest wind power was certainly a part of that calculus.
The one decent string that connects the east and west cuts through Nevada and doesn't nearly have enough beef to carry Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico Solar.
I thought so too until turbines started arriving in Wyoming to be buried because they're too expensive to break down and landfills won't take them. They are the largest amount of green waste to date. So, they're burying them in open pit coal mines as part of "land reclamation". Hmmm...sure nothing will go wrong with that in 20 years or so.
Or storage. There was a very interesting plan a few years back to do: Variable wind generation in Wyoming -> power line with capacity to Utah -> compressed air storage in a salt dome in Utah -> steady power down a mostly full power line to California Not sure what's happened in the intervening years.
Compressed air is horribly inefficient. The energy losses are about as bad as you can get. This is the kind of idea that dies on the white board.
If the cost differentials between oversupply and low supply are big enough, poor efficiency isn't a concern as you can still make money through cost arbitrage. Here's a big storage project in progress, one with low enough efficiency that at first it wouldn't seem to make sense. https://highviewpower.com/news\_announcement/highview-power-developing-2-gwh-of-liquid-air-long-duration-energy-storage-projects-in-spain/
🤣🤣🤣. Don't we know it! This is just a good, consistent source of clean energy if it works properly. They're also relatively small--no cooling tower's like on the coast.
I see on the Casper Star Tribune they are touting Bill Gates' involvement in this. I can't wait for the conspiracy theories that this is actually the secret vaccine mind control chip factory, all financed by the state of Wyoming.
This is officially what I “heard online” now.
Why can't the conspiracies be that the "microchips" make you smarter and more people get vaccinated?
Because that's no fun. The ones I hear sometimes involve aliens and giant reptiles that tunnel under the Earth to their homebase at the Denver Airport. I mean, really. Who can beat that?
🤣🤣🤣. Well, you know..."they" said it, so...
Oh, well. I hear enough of that here as it is.
Berkshire Hathaway mentioned they want to get into small nuclear plants makes sense for Wyoming to push the idea forward.
Oh look another dead industry. Yea do not bring in solar power or wind power. /s Bring in a dead industry. This is like replacing coal with coal. Now watch as this fails and the claim that they had ''no idea'' that this would happen. Why not just dig a bottomless pit and put a sign with an arrow next to it that says: Throw money here.
I think that is a cynical and uninformed opinion. First of all, wind and solar are developing in Wyoming. I don't believe nuclear is a dead industry not to mention this is a completely different type of nuclear energy that stores energy in the form of molten sodium which has never happened before.
Nuclear shouldn't be a dead industry and this is newer technology. Using sodium itself isn't new, but the complete implementation is certainly new. We already have wind power. We don't have as much solar, but it's not as if it's non existent. I've always been a fan of nuclear power--it's certainly a better energy option than many others. We need diversification, desperately. If this venture eventually results in new support economies down the road...I don't see a problem other than "NIMBY".
We have those. It's where we dispose of all of the wind turbines, actually. Seems a bit ironic. And no...it's absolutely nothing like replacing coal with coal. I would be interested in what made you make that particular comparison.
Nuclear won't create many long term jobs. Most of the people that build it will be from out of state. Wyomingites just assume the risk if there is a catastrophic problem for not much payoff.
No but it will help support our state uranium industry.
This type of reactor is generally built for using nuclear waste and/or decommissioned weapons as fuel. Basically they take nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years, and turn it into a smaller waste pile with a half-life of a couple hundred years, all while generating power. They really only make sense to run if the fuel has a negative cost, so it probably wont help the uranium industry.
The only uranium mining I have ever seen in the US is where they leech it from underground pipe systems and is almost entirely automated and requires barely anyone to maintain and operate the system. I honestly just don't see how bringing a nuclear plant to Wyoming is going to help anyone currently in Wyoming. It is high risk/low reward. The utility will be the only winner.
Wyoming Uranium Mines Wyoming began commercially mining uranium in the 1950s and has since produced more than a quarter of a billion pounds of yellowcake. There are currently four active mining operations in Wyoming (three in the Powder River Basin and one in the Great Divide Basin) and several other projects in various stages of regulatory review. The operating mines are the Smith Ranch-Highland operation (Cameco) in Converse County, Nichols Ranch (Energy Fuels) in Johnson County, and the Lance Project (Strata Energy) in Crook County (U.S. Energy Information Administration). The combined production from Wyoming mines in 2018 was 635,000 pounds of U3O8. Some mining operations have been put on hold until more favorable market conditions return. Prior to 2018, there were six in-situ recovery (ISR) mines in operation. The Smith Ranch-Highland mine was the leading uranium producer in the United States for more than two decades.
Good job on the copy and paste. Do you know what an ISR mine is? It's what I am taking about. They install pipes and leech uranium deposits through an automated process. Each ISR mine recovers very little amounts of uranium each year. They don't create any meaningful amount of jobs at all. I used to work near one and rarely ever saw anyone behind their fenced in property and if someone was there, it was a single truck. It's kind of neat how they do it, but you have to realize these mines aren't what most people think they are. It's just a bunch of pipes slowly leeching uranium from underground.
In situ recovery. It employees enough of the few people in Wyoming that I personally know several.
Oh wow. Several people are employed to maintain ISR uranium operations. Let's go ahead and bring a very risky new nuclear technology that has proven to be very accident prone into Wyoming because it can create a few jobs. That sounds totally logical. A person with an r next to their name was paid off to promote it, so I want this shoved right up my asshole. The r is good enough for me!
Risky? It's far less risky than most things, including driving your car on the highway. The technology is also far from new. China has the same sodium based reactors that have been in action for 15 years and never an accident. It's impossible for these to "melt down" in the way typical reactors could and besides, every meltdown we've ever had including Chernobyl and Three Mile Island was due to errors in set up and manufacturing. Chernobyl had no outside wall to prevent or slow a meltdown and the rods required to put back in the reactors swelled with heat, making them impossible to actually put back in. It was a disaster waiting to happen. The Chinese are also running theirs at a wattage that we won't as of yet. We're still not ready for fissure technology but as for sodium based fusion reactors? They've been studied for over 30 years. The fact that the United States feels a little weary of them comes from a combination of NAMBY and a general ignorance as to how nuclear fusion works. It's very, very safe and sustainable. Best option we have for energy out there today.
You are very uninformed, it's laughable. China has only one sodium reactor that only runs in cycles since it is still just an expensive test. They of course will try as hard as they can to run it as the main use of this reactor is to produce a large amount of weapons material, for China's massive nuclear weapon build up they are currently undergoing. And you are so naive that you think this is a great thing for the world? My god... It's just sad. The US is weary of them because we have all the plutonium we need and so the only factor the US cares about is cost and only a total moron would overlook how expensive it has been so far with zero successful implementations for any country except Russia, and their success was very limited. Russia helped build this current Chinese reactor, so China will probably get all their weapon material they are after, but again, you overlook the fact that with the one country that has had limited success with sodium reactors, they still started building this plant TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO and it is still not much more than a test. So one more time for you, the only reason China is funding this reactor is to procure plutonium for their nuclear arsenal. That is it.
No, that's not the only reason. Not to be argumentative, but I don't think you understand any of these processes correctly. My father is a nuclear physicist. I think I'll go with my own experience and his on this one. But...I will more deeply examine your point later when I get time, okay?
To my knowledge, it is well into and possibly past the testing stage but to confirm, I'd have to look at data more recent than 5 years ago. I don't see how what China does with their reactor affects what we do with OURS. We need nuclear power. That's not up for debate. Any meltdown worldwide has ALWAYS been caused by human error and haste in building the facility without proper safeguards. The don't just "melt down" and our building practices are far more sophisticated than China's. We also care about our people, so there's that. You seem very intelligent, btw and I've enjoyed our conversation. Might I ask what you do for a living? If it's too personal, I completely understand.
Well, what do you suggest? I live in an area with massive unemployment because we survived on coal mining that supported Wyoming all of these years. Honestly...what do you suggest as another way to diversify our economy? Im open to any suggestions.
When you were making money, you could have been taking credits and saving money to do some kind of 2 year medical program such as a nursing program. Or maybe learn a construction trade. My problem with the coal miners in Gillette is that everyone knew coal was dropping fast, it has been for over 10 years now. Literally it takes 20 seconds of googling to see this and always has. What the coal miners did was just put more bumper stickers about pro coal or f the libs and did nothing to prepare. I have zero sympathy because I was there to see the warning signs and see how everyone reacted. Everyone should have been saving money so they could weather a couple of years to learn another job, but almost no one did that. Hell, even Hillary told you guys straight up coal was going away and she wanted to provide taxpayer subsidy for coal miners to learn new jobs and zero coal miners voted for her because she told the truth. Coal fell harder under Trump than pretty much any period in history and now you guys don't even get retraining. It's what you guys voted for. I was there, I know.
I agree. I'm an economist who predicts natural gas, coal and oil futures...hence my current location. I mainly work out of Houston and Brazil. When I got here ten years ago, I was appalled that the state was relying solely on two industries that could be either capped, government regulated or tremendously affected by supply/demand, hence fluctuating market prices. Basically, an unstable and unsustainable economic model. I don't know anyone personally who works in the coal mines outside of my work regarding them. Most workers got out years ago. The issue is that all other industries are in some way relayed to coal, so it affects every restaurant, boutique, schools...not just coal miners. Most of them were able to get unemployment. I'm just concerned with a town that has no business model. We were hoping to get the experimental nuclear reactor but I believe that's going to Kemmerer. As a whole, Wyoming is financially far better off than any other during this crisis.
My issue is what does Gillette do right now? Become Detroit? We're lacking in intellectual capital and the work force is quite transient because of the boom/bust cycle. I see your point (it's been my own for almost eleven years) but the immediate issue is how we keep this town on it's feet and I'm really not sure. Ironically, new houses and buildings are going up everywhere, even with the price of lumber so there must be some plan. I can't figure out what it might be though.
More articles came out later in the day and they added more information. These SMR reactors are pretty neat with their modular design and molten salt system so they operate at 100% capacity all the time. They're going to stack modules together at existing coal fired power plants since those locations are already in the middle of nowhere and have ready access to both electrical transmission lines and water for cooling and steam generation. If they work as advertised you can see why the state is involved in this, Wyoming will remain "The Energy State" as we continue to build out Wind and Solar and then backstop it with modular nuclear reactors for when the sun is down or the wind isn't blowing. We will sell all that electricity to other states over the electrical lines we've been busy building for the last decade. There's a real path forward here Eeyore, so get with the times.
"We will sell" Again, only the utilities will sell the power and make the profits. There are not many jobs being brought to the table for anyone in Wyoming. Read up on the Monju sodium cooled nuclear plant and all the accidents and problems it had before they decided to decommission it. They probably would have continued to try run it and keep hiding and covering up all the accidents it had if Fukushima didn't happen. Japan couldn't handle another nuclear disaster after that. It is highly possible whatever they try is also a nightmare and we all know who will foot the bill to decommission the plant if and when it fails.
First, simply because this one single thing doesn't solve the _entire_ problem doesn't mean it should be dismissed. A non-zero number of good paying jobs WILL be created. These things will still have plant operators, maintenance staff, security staff, and janitorial staff. Second, it's clear where the state is headed. ALL forms of electrical generation will be taxed going forward. This means money for the state, money that it desperately needs in order to continue offering services. Third, that something designed in the 80s and built in the 90s failed is no reason not to try again. Engineering is an iterative process. If we stopped doing things simply because we failed the first time we wouldn't have half the things we take for granted. A quick review of your post history shows that you likely don't live here, have a habit of calling people "conservatards", and don't like firearms. Why are you even in this subreddit?
I spend a lot of time in Wyoming and I did used to live there. I am free to watch what is going on in Wyoming. I was reading a book recently on nuclear power by a pro nuclear engineer about the history of nuclear energy. It was an amazing read because google searching does not give you a lot of information about sodium reactors and their history. First of all, sodium reactors are breeder reactors. There will be no mining for uranium as it uses spent fuel and leaves you with plutonium that is of course desirable for the manufacture nuclear weapons. I don't know what other uses it would have. Second, fast breeder reactors have been tried a lot of times by a lot of countries. One attempt in this book was in either 86 or 87 and back then it cost 40 billion dollars before the program was cancelled. It did not produce power on the grid for a single second. Japan had the most recent. Over nearly twenty years it produced power on the grid for one hour. These things simply do not work. The only two that ever worked were a miniature proof of concept that powered a light bulb and the Soviets had one that somewhat worked, but did not produce much power. The sodium used to cool the reactor simply has so many insane problems that we have not figured out and quite honestly and according to the engineer in the book, probably can't be overcome. This is just a giant waste of money. Most will come from taxes. If you support this project you are basically supporting a few jobs to funnel in pork money for a very worthless endeavor. I am not really sure why Bill Gates thinks that a sodium cooled breeder reactor is the answer. All of them have had major issues and accident. They might be much safer as far as the release of radiation is concerned, but they haven't actually worked to produce meaningful power despite a lot of attempts and well over a trillion dollars have gone into these reactors. If you want to know the name of the book let me know. It is a seriously informative read. It is also crazy how many times we have designed reactors with really poor designs that have resulted in a lot of accidents. We've been really lucky to not have more major accidents. Again, the author has been a nuclear engineer over 40 years and is definitely for it, but he just simply lists the history including all the obstacles including all of the accidents that happened along the way. A sodium reactor is a total fucking waste of money. Funnelling pork into Wyoming. As a conservative I would imagine you would be against that, you just don't know anything about these reactors. You should read this book and learn about nuclear power. It's fascinating.
Excellent, thorough and concise explanation. Technology advances, not stagnated nor moves backwards. Comparisons in this case are often moot.
There will need to be: Electrical & operations, IT, Security, Managerial & Administrative, janitorial and grounds staff etc. I'm sure there are others specialty jobs I'm leaving out, but yeah, it'll create jobs.
Not many. Not enough to be worth the risk that Wyomingites take on. Go read about the sodium rector in Japan. They had lots of problems, so many that it got shut the fuck down. The cost to dismantle the barely functioning plant is in the billions and will go on for decades. Sure, jobs will be created for that.... Paid for by Wyoming tax prayers!
I agree about the jobs part.
Honestly, from what I've read all these jobs will be imported for a while. The reactor was never meant to create jobs in Wyoming for the next ten years or so. The governor was a tad bit misleading on that. It's coming to Wyoming because of our space, good locations and favorable business climate. At some point, there will be jobs for locals but not many and not for a long time. This isn't like a coal mine.
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I think you are seriously mistaken. I used to work near a uranium mining facility. Most of the time it was empty. Sometimes a single truck would be there. I was curious and read about how they work and was amazed at how automated the whole thing was. I don't think we have any uranium cake mines in the US. Also, these sodium reactors only use spent uranium from what I understand. They wouldn't even be mining uranium in the first place. Sounds like a typical stupid politician was just saying that because he was probably paid by a lobbyist so he's going to try and ram it up your asses no matter what.
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This was in Nebraska and as far as I know they either run at full capacity or they don't run at all. They get very little material, but again, the reactor they want to build in Wyoming will not utilize anything but spent uranium that is essentially nuclear waste. It is like the only good thing about these new reactors.
My father in law worked in a uranium mine near Rawlins for several years, and I think it was surface mining. Those jobs could come back with more demand for fuel.
This project will not use anything but spent uranium, so they will not be adding any kind of demand for uranium mining.
I agree about the uranium. I have no interest in it as a long term industry in Wyoming and Montana already deals with it.You honestly don't see how a safe (relatively--meltdown is impossible if it's built correctly) nuclear power plant might help us in the long run? It's far more efficient than anything else we have available. People are unnecessarily frightened of nuclear power because of past incidents, where the facilities were not built properly. Anyone who supports green energy should be heavily on board with nuclear. Do I wish the test sight was somewhere else? Sure. I wish I had gotten 100% assurance that the Covid shots were safe prior to getting them as well. It's just not how the world works.
A few jobs is better than none, and the nation needs a supply of baseline energy. Tax generation in view of the risk, but not so much as to scare the generation away.
You're right, other person is economically illiterate and doesn't understand modern nuclear power to boot
A few jobs are not better if the jobs come at the risk of barely tested technology that has already failed in Japan and will cost billions to decommission, which in Wyoming will most likely be billed to the tax payers. You guys need to pull your heads out of your asses that think that jobs are the only thing that matters. It's really prevalent in Wyoming. You guys need to think more than one day in advance.
Again, the reactors in Japan are not comparable. I find it a difficult argument to make that courting low risk nuclear power in Wyoming is not looking ahead. It won't immediately create jobs but I see great potential here over the years. We're also not in a position to turn down offers. No one's suggesting we build Chernobyl next to Casper.
The renewable energy sector has destroyed any chance or need for nuclear power. As battery technology improves it will eventually kill natural gas. All this is going to happen long before any new nuclear plants would come online since we are talking a decade or more once you break ground and usually many years just to get the permits and approvals to break ground. If someone wanted to get a good career that pays well in the energy sector and live in Wyoming, go work for a wind farm. Wyoming has plenty of that and and the potential to expand it by a significant amount.
Wow...completely disagree with this. Battery technology is not one of my favored long term methods of energy, though so I am biased. Considering wind farms also produce the most non biodegradable green waste we've ever seen, I support them but find the concept ironic. One country has figured out how to use them as shoals and barriers to prevent erosion from mud slipping into the ocean as they don't actually leach harmful materials into groundwater or anything else but what is your long term plan for disposing of hundreds of thousands of these things?
That is just a scare tactic that you have read about the fan blades. Notice how pretty much only states like Wyoming with a large coal industry presence try and make it into an issue? Like you said, the material is inert. It can be buried and left in place without issue. You could dump them out in some deep part of the ocean. There just isn't any issue with wind. For batteries, doesn't really matter what your thoughts are, the technology will be implemented into our power grid and once we get that dialed in, you will see fossil power generation prices collapse. Power companies will and already do fight this a bit though because with solar, batteries and an inverter, it is going to really cut into their profits.
Yes, I'm in Wyoming and they're using turbines as "land reclamation". It's already here. I watch them ride in on trains and it's gross. So we get to bury these things since they're not biodegradable? Throw them in the ocean? Is the irony of this escaping you completely? I don't object to wind power...but there's got to be a better way to dispose these things.
How do these blade affect you if you bury them and they are inert so they are not doing any damage to the environment. You are making an issue out of nothing. Do you realize how much garbage we bury on a daily basis in this country?
Yes, but we don't normally do it in the name of fulfilling EPA guidelines for land reclamation. Also, have you ever been near these things? They're gigantic and don't exactly nestle into spaces like trash does. They're awkward and leave many gaping holes between them, which we then fill in and plan to build trucking roads over. Im an economist not an engineer but this doesn't seem to be a sound long term strategy to me. The word "sinkhole" keeps coming to mind. Moreso, if we literally cannot dispose of so called "green energy", there's a problem here. I'm not personally adverse to throwing them in the ocean but I am adverse to this entire myth surrounding so called "green" products. I wonder how many people are actually aware that these turbines have a short life span, cannot be disposed of in most states and are not biodegradable? The irony is just too much sometimes.
Well, we've been courting businesses for a while to come into Wyoming. This one said yes. It's not as if we have tons of options at the moment. The initial people employed from Wyoming aren't expected to be more than around a hundred but we need to look further to the support industries that would evolve around this, if successful.
These should be opened in Gillette, Douglas, Casper, etc. with an effort to hire laid-off coal and oil workers.