Japan wants to restart seven more nuclear reactors from next summer onward, Japan PM Kishida said at a government meeting on “green transformation.” That would bring the number of reactors brought back online after the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe to 17 out of a total 33 operable units.
Japan new expansion of nuclear power comes after a summer impacted by extreme weather and a global fuel shortage on electricity supply. Tokyo has seen two major power crunches this year, including during the worst heat wave for the end of June in more than a century.
They are also looking at extending the lifespan of existing reactors beyond the current maximum of 60 years.
Separately China’s Commercial Small Modular ACP100 Reactor
Japan will probably avoid using China and Russia’s nuclear technology. About 80-85% of the new nuclear reactors are being built by China and Russia or are using China and Russia nuclear designs.
China is building a small modular nuclear reactor using conventional pressure water technology. A smaller 125 MWe reactor means the cost will be about eight times less than a gigawatt reactor.
Once completed, the Changjiang ACP100 reactor will be capable of producing 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to meet the needs of 526,000 households. The reactor is designed for electricity production, heating, steam production or seawater desalination.
In August, The final tank of concrete has been poured into the underground retaining walls of the conventional island at the ACP100 small modular reactor (SMR) demonstration project at the Changjiang nuclear power plant on China’s island province of Hainan.
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the cost will be about eight times less than
That is mathematical nonsense. One time less than would make the cost zero.
Japan and China show how they are looking to the future through clear eyes. Nuclear energy is the fuel of the future, and they know it. The commies of America are destroying the fossil fuel systems of our country and know that Nuclear energy is the fuel of the future or maybe not.
Is”eight times less” the same as 1/8th the cost?
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I quote from the article: “… the cost will be about eight times less than a gigawatt reactor.” What exactly does that mean? I can understand how the cost of an alternative reactor could be eight times more than that of another reactor, but how can it be eight times less? Or is the intent to say one-eight the cost?
If a gigawatt nuclear reactor costs $8 Billion, then a nuclear reactor with one-eighth of the power 125 megawatts and the same cost per kilowatt of construction has a cost of $1 billion. This is easier for utilities to finance.
Any word on Japan and the NuScale reactor?
Still, the ones that can reasonably be cleared for restart added to the running ones represent only 15% of the total power consumption at best. At least the extension rationale this time has been adjusted to not count the long downtime (it’s been a decade since Fukushima), which is not unreasonable in and of itself.
But, new reactors is going to be a difficult sell. The ruling party will have to force it through, as the middle class is waffling between nuclear hate and inflation pain (which is tied to energy costs). With wages stagnant, the sudden rise these last two years of household costs (many of which are directly or tangentially linked to energy costs) is applying budget pain directly to the public, but the ruling party core base are retirees who depending on their situation are shielded from inflation.
The may have a better time with a full offshore solution like the french DCNS FlexBlue (basically a nuclear submarine without a propeller chained to a power takeoff cable), out beyond the territorial limit which makes NIMBY opposition difficult. Japan is also starting to dip its toes into offshore floating wind turbines and ocean current water turbines, some of which could be located near active or decommissioned nuclear powerplants (using them as their landing station for power cables and connectivity to the grid).
Hopefully, they will move the emergency diesel generators out of the basement to the upper floors. And recalculate the pipe hangers needed to 9.x quakes.
Most reasonable comments I’ve ever seen from you WRT nukes.
Haven’t heard of any high energy line breaks happening in the historical record save for Chernobyl… plan for LOCA, build for LOCA, get core melt from loss of feed water…
Definitely put the diesels up high. Lol
One set of diesels up high, one set deep in the ground?
We don’t know what, if anything, the next disaster is going to be. So we really don’t want to “fight the last war” only to have a meteor strike (or whatever black swan it turns out to be) take out the high mounted gensets.
Yes, once the horse has left the barn … and the Fukushima event was quite unexpected, especially the size of the tsunami that disabled the pumps. So when will the next one arrive? It could easily be a thousand years.
Good! Good!
They ought to consider ThorCon’s technology.
“They ought to consider ThorCon’s technology.”
Because? You think they don’t have the talent in Japan to make such a reactor if they agreed with ThorCon marketing PowerPoints?
ThorCon is 8 or 9 retirees with a hobby.
As for Japan, slow walk is better than walk back (Germany).