Why are our attitudes towards rocketing nuclear material into the stratosphere and beyond all of the sudden changing from "absolutely not" to "this is fine"?

The anti-nuclear groups are losing funding thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia is a big part of it. Also, the anti-nuclear groups were largely ignorant and manipulated baby boomers who are dying off.

Post below asks “why nuclear all of a sudden? Partly because the technically well-informed have finally (inevitably )!come to the correct conclusion that there is no route to a decarbonized economy without nuclear power. Renewables are great, renewables are the future, but nuclear power absolutely is going to be part of the solution.

As far as their connection to space travel, nothing else can match the energy density of nuclear power. There’s just no getting around it, if we limit ourselves to chemical fuel the rest of the solar system is essentially off-limits to anything biological

Gonna make urban combat with super mutants and radscorpions way more dangerous though

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TRISO fuel among other safety advances mean that dangers due to a failed launch are massively limited compared to a few decades ago.

What are the Vegas odds for the first manned Mars landing being done in a Rolls?

This article is an absolute mess:

"Rolls-Royce Holdings is getting into the nuclear reactor business"

RR have been in the nuclear reactor business since the late 50s and their first home grown reactor went critical in 1965.

"Rolls-Royce Holdings announced in 2021 its intent to develop nuclear reactor technology, having obtained $600 million in public and private funding to develop its business"

That money was for small modular reactors (SMRs), small terrestrial power stations completely unrelated to microreactors.

Relevant xkcd

Why Uranium based though... My very limited knowledge on these things thought that Thorium reactors were the safer option?

I don't see a reason to think that there is no rute to decarbonizing without nuclear power, i don't see any reason to think that as the "inevitable " or "correct" conclusion

I see many reasons why nuclear in space can be useful and desirable at least till we have fusion which we don't have

i don't see the need to proselitize the use of nuclear fission as energy on the ground in an thread about the use of nuclear propulsion in space

I have a feeling that fusion power will radically change humanity’s way of life sometime this century. All the benefits of nuclear, without the waste and lower risk. Hopefully even something more radical will come along.

German Greens would disagree (wrongly and stupidly) with you.

the "anti nuclear groups" don't matter to to investors and money makers the same that those against fossil fuels didn't matter, the soviet union never was anti nuclear either

as per nuclear propulsion goes the soviets developed and lauched several and if this didn't go further was due to the policies for the use of nuclears in space driven by national security agreements between the world powers not because any "anti nuclear groups"

the only thing that matters to investors are returns to their investment the less riskier and the quicker the better and on that nuclears never competed with oil neverminnd with renewables

this thread is about nuclear propulsion

On the other hand, much better than current reality tv. And on the third hand, more mutations!

reddit hivemind has a nuclear power boner

Nuclear is not a silver bullet either monetarily or carbon wise. It's an option. But one with a number of VERY significant downsides and quite dependent on govt indemnification/socialism.

Left solar and wind off the chart

If you're going to Mars you want Rolls Royce Engines, looks way better on the brochure.

Plus less cancer.

So to answer your question, 50%.

Not left off so much as can't be shown. What's the energy density of wind?

There's already ~4 billion metric tons of uranium in seawater. Dissolving the entire reactor and dumping it into the ocean would have no measurable effect. RTGs are actually more dangerous, as they require isotopes with high enough levels of radioactivity to generate useful amounts of heat, and those materials are at their highest levels of activity the moment they are produced...you can't just delay turning them on until after they've safely launched.

Thorium is just another possible fission fuel. It's often proposed to be used in a molten salt reactor, but molten salt reactors are not all thorium reactors and thorium reactors are not all molten salt reactors. There's no shortage of safe uranium reactor designs, it's just been impossible to get them implemented because of the anti-nuclear groups.

They measured it in joules/kg. Solar is infinite. Wind I'm not so sure.

I don’t see socialism as an issue since Lockheed, NASA, ESA, and JPL are the main stars. Rolls Royce is a contractor. Well so are Boeing and Lockheed for thatvmatter

It's just not the right way to compare nuclear with solar and wind. And you can't put wind or sunlight in a fuel tank.

It's just that privatizing profits and socializing the costs kind of thing that's somewhat intrinsic to the nuclear equation.

Seems reasonable to me? Light is zero kg, so infinite energy per kg. I can't put uranium in my fuel tank either. Just not practical for the everyday person.

Solar and wind aren't "fuel".

I think it more of an old boys club like Standard Oil before the govt broke the monopoly

Nuclear power is indemnified by the govt beyond a certain amount. Without that indemnity, it wouldn't be economically viable.

Space is already radioactive. The vehicles using nuclear propulsion will be outside of the atmosphere and shouldn't make an impact on radiation levels on earth. It was frowned upon because it was seen as putting nuclear weapons in Space, but that's different now. We could all easily kill each other with ICBM's so putting a nuclear ship in Space isn't the treat it was in the 70's, plus we can put more mass into space now, so things like shielding are less costly.

Yes but many countries can now supply it or is that a dumb thing to say?

Do you think once the company has SMR's, they aren't going to dump more money into R&D for microreactors?

With the amount of talk around mining asteroids, if RR developed a spacefairing propulsion system they'd explode in market value.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |ESA|European Space Agency| |ICBM|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |Isp|Specific impulse (as explained by Scott Manley on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |JPL|Jet Propulsion Lab, California| |MON|Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen| |NTR|Nuclear Thermal Rocket| |RTG|Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator|

|Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |Raptor|Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX|

^(8 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 10 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8521 for this sub, first seen 6th Feb 2023, 21:02]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

>the soviet union never was anti nuclear either

The Soviet Union was never anti-nuclear for itself.

However, the anti-nuclear movement in the West was at least encouraged, if not partially funded, by the USSR, especially when it came to nuclear weapons. But it also spilled into nuclear power generation.

I guess the point is that it's a form of socialism for the nuclear energy industry.

Rolls-royce. Good so that means I'll never be able to afford that

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Nuclear power will never be safe and it's unnecessary. We can easily power the entire world with solar.

I personally have my suspicions that the anti-nuclear “movement” is ultimately funded by fossil fuel interests gaslighting as environmentalists

But the sheer weight of solar panels on a rocket make it unusable.

RR SMRs is a separate company to RR now (majority owned by RR still), so SMRs and microreactors will be developed concurrently and independently.

Either way, if they wait until SMRs hit the big time to dump money into microreactors it will be far too late and Westinghouse (eVinci) or someone else will have already dominated the market.

The space propulsion side is really nothing to do with RR and I don't think they are developing it as there is no expertise for that. They are simply providing new reactors, as they have done for 60 years.

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Because there is no way to decarbonise without nuclear energy doing the “heavy lifting”- keep in mind this is only for energy purposes. This does nothing for the other uses of hydrocarbons.

Renewables are not a viable solution to providing consistent clean energy- as abundant as wind, flowing water, and photons are, the machinery used to convert to electricity don’t produce enough, long enough, or consistently enough. Nuclear energy provides energy at any time of day, any load, any external environmental factor. Doesn’t give a shit. And with people mass buying electric cars, on top of consuming electricity as normal, our infrastructure is in for one hell of a ride.

I don’t get why this is such a hard concept for the Reddit hive mind to understand. You can’t power a country exclusively on solar panels and windmills. We need nuclear energy. It’s a no brainer. The longer we argue the longer the transition is delayed.

> Nuclear power will never be safe

Mmmhhmm. We've had extremely safe, sufficiently compact and mobile nuclear power since the 50s. We know they're safe because navy personnel on nuclear subs / ships have lived long healthy lives. In fact, the commander of the first US nuclear sub (commissioned in 1954) went on to also command the first nuclear ship. He got to live 94 years!

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Uhhh, that is exactly what happened.

Solar power is neither infinite in energy density, total amount of energy or duration of energy.

Not sure what you mean by "Solar is infinite."

How many megajoules per kg is it?

Nuclear reactors use light as the energy for power.

Coal generators use light as the energy for power.

Natural gas generators use light as the energy for power.

Geothermal generators use light as the energy for power.

Light is the way energy is transferred from one atom or molecule to another atom or molecule.

Heat is light.

For example:

Coal is burned, the chemical reaction creates lots of photons. Those photons get absorbed by water molecules. The water molecules become excited. Excited water molecules move faster. Faster moving water molecules have more kinetic energy. Steam is the result. High velocity steam spins a turbine. The turbine spins a magnetic field inside an coil. This produces electricity.

Energy density is really a measure of the number and energy of the photons generated by a certain fuel. Light is not the fuel (hint: fusion).

I mean they make jet engines for airliners. You can fly one without having to affording the whole plane..

Renewable sources can likely support about 40 percent of future energy demands.

"Wind powered travel to Mars." M'kay.

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Does anyone know what the total mass of the exhaust* (momentum generator) would be in a nuclear rocket versus a chemical one?

And what would that exhaust* be?

*I'm not sure what the correct term is, maybe propellant?

Ah…the “s-word” rears its ugly, stupid head yet again

The fact that there has never been a accident with a payload containing fissile material.

Privatizing profit and socializing cost and hiding true costs are an ugly thing indeed and something that nuke power is entirely dependent upon.

Solar energy is hydrogen fusion, deuterium–tritium fusion is about 338,000,000 MJ/kg.

But we don't have the technology to create miniature suns in our rockets.

BTW, U-235 fission has an energy density of about 144,000,000 MJ/kg.

source

Another source puts the energy density of the sun's core around 6.43 x 10^(8) MJ/kg, or 643,000,000 MJ/kg.

The second source is titled The Source of Solar Energy.

False, at current energy use levels.

Potentially possible, if we have massive crash-course investment in transmission, infrastructure and a corresponding (and profoundly improbable) society-wide massive decrease in the average per-capita energy consumption of western countries.

In other words, not possible

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So take the profit margin out of it. Nuclear power should be run entirely by the government/military

Even if you could somehow do that, if you include the true total lifetime cost, it'd require huge subsidies to remain competitive.

the main difference is those were bombs. we've been sending nuclear materiel into space for ages. voyager 1 is still kicking thanks to a rtg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_space

Einstein's most famous equation (E=mc^(2)) limits energy density of any fuel to 9 x 10^(10) MJ/kg

And that would be an antimatter reactor. Physics means no fuel can have infinite density.

Light. Zero mass. Lots of energy.

That's fusion reactors not solar energy on the surface of the earth

Fusion is what happens on the sun

Not what we do on earth

What a mess of an article. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Gizmodo is a far cry from the days of paying $5000 for the iPhone 4.

That's not the sick burn you think it is

Yes, exactly. Solar energy is fusion.

Where does the solar energy on the surface of the earth come from?

Where did the light come from?

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Where did that plutonium come from?

I wonder if the space crafts will have complementary luxury umbrellas that astronauts can pop out of the doors.

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The Nostromo in the original Alien movie had Rolls Royce engines. Not sure if they were nuclear.

What about solar winds? And a sail to catch them? Feels like I've heard about this someplace.

Depends on the car.

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It was 3rd degree.

I get the feeling you'd rather "win" an "argument" than be correct. Your whole premise is born of ignorance, but it's easier for some to remain ignorant than to recognize they are wrong.

Heat has infinite energy density, so we should just burn coal for rockets. <- your logic at work.

Sudden? Nerva project is 60 years old.

Hey Rolls-Royce. You need another "R"

You know Rolls-Royce Reactor.

Rolls-Royce and only Rolls-Royce is allowed to use this idea gratis.

So is the interstate highway system, which kills a lot more people than nuclear reactors ever have.

It's actually the cars that kill the people is it not?

Hmm sell them as sealed units and you might have a safe product there. There's some progress on thermophotovoltaic cells (like solar cells except they operate in the IR spectrum) that could make a solid state no-moving-parts RTG about 20x to 40x more efficient than the old voyager RTGs.

im pretty sure that fossil fuel like to use propaganda greenwash themselves

and also have my suspicion that they may want use pro nuclear propaganda an industry they have been coexisting and competing with for the last seven decades in order to delay the energy transition because they cannot compete and control the disruptive changes that renewables caused in the market

i also have the suspicion that they may be using pro nuclear propaganda to blame any renewable supporter as pro fossil fuel 😌

i also am aware that a pro nuclear bot was found doing his rounds at reddit and also that there are plenty of pronuclear comments dressed as facts not being so also i realized that often pro nuclear energy coments apprear in threads that are not discusing such

Incidently this thread was about nuclear PROPULSION yet here are the church of the fissiontology in force proselitizing

i rather back read about nuclear propulsion which is something i find interesting

Did it say how these planned nuclear engines would actually work?

Could someone explain how it's supposed to work?

Thanks

Rtgs don't put out much .energy though. Fine to run some spacecraft instruments. A house? Maybe not so much

The article leaves out how exactly the energy would be used to propel the spacecraft. It does not seem like it will be “throw the bomb out the back” type nuclear propulsion. Perhaps the idea is to use the energy to power an ion drive of some kind?

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Efficiency isn't really the thing...the actual plutonium oxide pellet they use for RTG's only gives off a total of about 40-60 watts. Doesn't matter how good your collection is, they'll only run the equivalent of a single 60w incandescent bulb assuming absolutely perfect conversion.

Even if you had theoretically perfect insulation, you're just going to make the the alpha decay happen faster.

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The propellant mass of nuclear thermal rockets would vary based on the fuel chosen (ideally, hydrogen) and the specific mission requirements but generally an equivalent NTR will have twice the efficiency of a chemical rocket. So twice your delta-v for the same propellant and mission payload.

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Nuclear for space travel is probably the best option we currently have.

For land based power, that is absolutely not true.

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Isp is the term you want, it's a measure of fuel efficiency for generated thrust. For example, Ultra Safe Nuclear generated a reference design for NASA for a small, 25MWth NTR with an Isp of 900 seconds. Traditional chemical rockets (like the Raptor engines from SpaceX) are ~325-360 seconds depending on altitude.

It is the drivers of cars that kill people.

One pellet is 60w, but you use more than one pellet.

ah yes, exactly what we want, a proliferation of millions of orphan sources of enriched uranium. Small scale nuclear is probably the way forward, but RTG's in grandma's basement aren't it, chief.

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>privatizing profits and socializing the costs

How is this different than oil or coal? Or heavy industry?

Pollution is socialized cost with privatized profits. Mining coal destroys environments. Burning coal causes asthma.

Seems nuclear would reduce socialized costs.

I would have thought that would have been obvious to a nuclear expert.

Really rolls off the tongue

Not sure what you mean, but I think that falls into the field of economics. Or public health.

Do you understand how the indemnities work?

>indemnities

That sounds like law. Not sure what you're getting at with the nuclear expert comment.

Or where you're going with this in general. But do you think kids growing up around coal generators that get asthma get a big pay out from the companies? IF they did I don't think coal plants would exist.

Are you implying that I am the economist/lawyer/nuclear physicist or you are?

Well it's kind of critical to the original argument. Not sure we can go any further if you don't understand them.

no results

So you are a lawyer, nuclear physicist, public health expert, and economist.

But

Ok then.

Well it's kind of important to understand how the indemnities work to get the original point of privatizing profit and socializing costs.

I agree that sort of thing happens a lot. I guess with nuclear it's just a matter of the scales involved.

Therefore in the ratio mJ/kg, light is undefined and cannot be on the chart; which was the original point.

>I guess with nuclear it's just a matter of the scales involved.

Exactly my point. Coal is much worse for people than nuclear, even when accounting for MWh/year life lost. So many more people are affected by coal than nuclear.

It's like comparing car accidents to air accidents. Car accidents cause more deaths in total and per mile traveled, but people freak out about air accidents because there are more deaths per accident.

Or where you trying to imply that mining and heavy industry actually pay out all the indemnities they should, but nuclear plants don't? Politics kind of makes that improbable.

Still don't understand the "nuclear expert" comment. Are you referring to yourself as the "nuclear expert" or to me?

You should really look up how the indemnities work to have a fuller understanding of what you're advocating. It's worth your time.

So you're a lawyer?

I'm very confused about your point. If you are a lawyer I'd think you'd be better about making your point.

It should be crystal clear by this point I would have thought?

Your point? Crystal clear? If mud is crystal.

You've done little to further your point. Or to counter my claims that fossil fuels have more social costs than nuclear.

It's just that you're probably going to struggle understanding the "privatizing profits and socializing costs" angle if you don't know what indemnities are and how they function in the nuclear power equation.

Oh. So you've taken steps to make your point clearer? Crystal clear? Like hematite?

Or you've countered my claims that coal plants cause asthma, but haven't been held responsible for them?

If you're a lawyer, you're not very good at supporting your point.

I'm just saying that if you want to understand what I meant by privatizing profits and socializing costs you have to understand what indemnities are and how they work in the nuclear power industry

If you really wanted me to understand your POV on indemnities and socializing costs and privatizing profits were, you'd have done so by now.

But you haven't. Because you know I'm right.

You don't seem to be very trusting of my opinion. And that's perfectly fine.

That's why I suggested you do your own research so you're not having to depend on my own personal take on the subject.

You haven't had an opinion in the last 5 responses.

Socialized costs is much greater than indemnities.

That's because you refuse to educate yourself on the subject so we can begin an actual debate on the subject of indemnities and how they affect the cost structure of nuclear power.

Yes, the person who has posted references is the person who refuses to do research or educate themselves.

External costs nuclear vs coal

Well. I gotta say. After all this, it still sounds like you don't understand what they are. And it's really not hard at all to find out what they are and how they work.

You do realize that CO2 emission is a socialized cost, right? Socialized costs are bigger than what's in a contract.

I'm beginning to think you have no idea what indemnities are. You keep typing the word, but haven't given any evidence you know how they work.

OK then. Well it was good chatting with you. Definitely check those things out if you want to consider yourself an informed nuclear advocate.

Are you the nuclear expert you were talking about earlier?

Expert is kind of a relative term. I do know how the indemnities work in the nuclear industry.

So if you have specific knowledge of an industry insider, why would you assume that everyone would have access to that same knowledge?

Does that also give you knowledge of indemnities in the coal industry? How about plastic? Are you aware of the concept of externalized cost (basically interchangeable with socialized costs)?

Externalized costs exist in all forms of industry. Even groceries. Are you suggesting that only those things specifically mentioned in an indemnity is the entire social cost of a thing? And nuclear is the worst alternative, in terms of externalized costs, per MWh among electrical generation methods?

I'm not an industry insider. Google and wiki are just about all you need to get the high level gist.

Ah, I got ya. That is why you kept talking in circles.

LOL. OK. Well at least I'm not the one making a fool of themselves by not knowing what they are talking about.

Good chat!

I think you proved you didn't know what you are talking about.

Which is why you avoided talking about it.

OK.

Well, anywho, look up those indemnities so next time you'll know what you're talking about. Should make for a much more interesting conversation.

You've made it very clear you have no idea what indemnities actually are. Or how they work.

You've also made it clear you don't understand that indemnities are not connected to the total socialized cost. How much did "x" corporation contribute to the polluted water of Flint, MI?

Sure, they have indemnities. Even if we legally could and wanted to, we still can't calculate the total cost. We know the total costs is insane, but don't know how many years of lost productive labor was lost due to health issues. Nor can we assign a specific amount of to each corporation, even if indemnities allowed it.

But you're not a lawyer. You just pretend to be one on the internet.

Why don't you explain it to me in your own words? Surely you can ELI5.

How can you even make a judgement when you don't even know what they are? No wonder you're a fan of nuclear!

Well, you still have your chance to prove you know what you are talking about.

Tell me how indemnities are the total final socialized cost of thing.

I already said why you should find out yourself and you just plowed on with not wanting to know or educate yourself for many many posts.

So why should I do your homework for you?

I don't think a company known for designing engines for automotive, marine, and aeronautic applications deciding to develop engines for interplanetary applications is nearly as farfetched as you believe it to be.

You have no fucking clue, do you? You are completely clueless. You read an article about indemnities in the nuclear industry, and now you have no idea how to explain it at all. You can't actually understand what you read. And you surely wouldn't be able to explain it or connect it to a conversation about socialized costs.

You've proved all this.

So tell me why the indemnities aren't socializing the costs and privatizing the profit?

I never said they weren't. I said they are nearly irrelevant when calculating the TRUE socialized cost.

Even if we could sue a coal company from co2 emissions because our crops died from a heat wave, we couldn't. Even if there are no indemnities. It would be hard to prove that that specific plant contributed to that specific heat wave. But it's still a socialized cost, indemnity or not.

You learned a big word and think it's a conversation. You're such a big boy!

How can you say the cost of a cleanup or evacuating a Tokyo or New York is irrelevant?

Those are entirely relevant and were you to include them in the cost structure it would make nuclear power far too expensive to be competitive.

Start reading about coal and health outcomes associated with childhood in certain radii of burning plants.

Or how water is polluted and diverted from agriculture.

Socialized costs are not exclusive to the nuclear industry (or indemnities).

You realize a EULA contain indemnities? Or even being on reddit?

Now you wanna talk.

How about the cost of the healthcare of all the children who get asthma? What about compensation for their years of lost labor? Coal can't compete if that were the case.

It's sounds like you're still kind of struggling to understand the concept WRT nuclear power. Again, i don't think you'll accept my opinion on the matter so I suggest you really try to understand how they work in the nuclear power cost equation and then we can have a more fruitful discussion on the matter.

Not farfetched at all, just it isn't happening at present. If they start hiring space propulsion experts tomorrow then it wouldn't shock me, but they don't have any today.

The RR microreactor will power someone else's nuclear propulsion tech.

Quick question. What do you think the total externalized cost of Fukushima was? I have an estimate ~$100billion. Sound like a lot, right?

Coal industry externalizes an estimated $50 billion/year.

Three mile island cost about $1 billion from 1979 to 1991. Or about $3 billion in today's money.

How much cost has coal externalized in the last 40 years?

I'm no fan of coal and I'm a huge, huge fan of clean air regulations and things like carbon/pollution taxes. So, to that extent, I'm in favor of acknowledging the true price of coal as well.

But, once you shut the coal plant down, the vast majority of the long term impact shuts down as well. Not so much with nukes. That stuff hangs around for a very long time and you have to manage it all along the way.

That's why the industry requires such extreme indemnities.

Eh, fair. Time will tell what they do.