Engineers in China have successfully designed and demonstrated a full-scale commercial nuclear reactor that is capable of passively and automatically cooling itself. This design eliminates the risk of catastrophic “meltdowns”, putting to rest longstanding green fears about the disaster at Chernobyl being repeated. The development gives perspective to the new Government’s claims that they will make Britain a “clean energy superpower by 2030”. For decades, U.K. policymakers have run around like headless chickens, making hollow promises about a “green industrial revolution”, but our energy prices have skyrocketed and our nuclear sector is in disarray. A new reactor along the same lines as the Chinese ones could have been developed here in the U.K., but for green ideology dominating the energy policy agenda.
According to the New Scientist, the High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor Pebble-Bed Module (HTR-PM) in Shandong, which began operations in December, recently tested its passive safety design by simply switching the plant off. In a conventional reactor, this would risk a meltdown. But instead, the HTR-PM simply cooled naturally. Safety systems, some of them passive, have been around for a long time. But this innovation leaves even less to mishap.
To read the rest of this article, you need to donate at least £5/month or £50/year to the Daily Sceptic, then create an account on this website. The easiest way to create an account after you’ve made a donation is to click on the ‘Log In’ button on the main menu bar, click ‘Register’ underneath the sign-in box, then create an account, making sure you enter the same email address as the one you used when making a donation. Once you’re logged in, you can then read all our paywalled content, including this article. Being a donor will also entitle you to comment below the line, discuss articles with our contributors and editors in a members-only Discord forum and access the premium content in the Sceptic, our weekly podcast. A one-off donation of at least £5 will also entitle you to the same benefits for one month. You can donate here.
There are more details about how to create an account, and a number of things you can try if you’re already a donor – and have an account – but cannot access the above perks on our Premium page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Britain will have just one operational nuclear power station. But that plant, Sizewell B, is scheduled for closure in 2035, after which, we will be back down to one again. The combined loss of power by 2028 will be net equivalent to 12 GW of always-on, baseload capacity.
Insane. The criminals really want to destroy the world by 2030-35 it appears. Nuclear is clean, cheap in the long term and safe. It doesn’t slaughter 1000 birds per wind turbine blade nor murder whales and dolphins; nor cover our farmland in endless arrays of useless solar engines. Ergo, heretofore it is truly ‘green’, which is just another buzzword devoid of meaning.
And the nuclear waste is not our problem?
That’s one for future generations to deal with? All facts need to be mentioned or we’re as bad as ev evangelists not mentioning depreciation or child mining!
I bet the hole to bury our nuclear waste is a lot smaller that the one we’ll have to dig for windmill blades and solar panels…
That’s true, but they don’t remain radioactive for 200000 years!
I’m not against nuclear, as I’ve said before, but all pros and cons must be addressed, there’s no safe fuel and like with evs it’s not the regularity of fires it’s the intensity that’s the problem, personally I’d sooner have small nuclear than acres of so called ‘green’ shyte all over the place
If you watch the documentary Inside Sellafield, which is a fantastic and insightful watch, amazingly made by the budget end of the BBC, you will realise how trivial the amount is, the serious waste for the entire planet will not quite fill an Olympic swimming pool, and he postulates that this could likely be broken down with neutrino bombardment to make it recyclable.
Why do they build such massive infrastructure for just a swimming pool full of waste? If it’s not nessasary then why bother?
And why is it that anyone on DS who questions the popular narrative gets immediately shut down and ridiculed?
Starting to look as bad as the very beliefs that most on here despise about the lefties! Don’t fall into the same trap, be free to discuss the pitfalls aswell as the pros, nuclear power is not perfect! If this fact is not allowed to be questioned then your no better than the communists idiots!
Did anyone say there were no negative points to nuclear? Of course waste has to be dealt with, a huge percentage of the fuel itself can be reprocessed again, but naturally there will be some small amounts of highly dangerous waste left. This has been contained and managed for many years in every country running a nuclear fleet. Storage facilities for the tiny amounts tend to be big and underground so you can secure it and stop some idiot dropping a missile or bomb into it and creating a ‘dirty’ bomb explosion of nuclear material into the atmosphere. Same with the power stations – the designs are built so tough in case of plane strike, accident etc.
I’ve visited 2 UK nuclear power stations, and was impressed with their levels of security, management and operational running etc.
Of course many people are opposed, but much of this is based on Chernobyl comparisons etc in my opinion.
Nobody “shut you down and riduled you”. This is called debate. Disagreement is not ridicule.
Those frightened of nuclear waste don’t understand physics.
I take it your a physics professor then?
The half life of Uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years. The amount of U238 is half what it was at the beginning of Earth. All the radioactive material we use on Earth was already here and not a product of humans. As it happens humans also don’t make Carbon either as that is widespread throughout the Universe.
Below is a Nuclear Power No Thanks sticker which shows a smiley sun. This is a very obvious oxymoron.
That’s a perfectly manageable problem – sensitive yes, but manageable and the tech exists
No. We’ve been safely and efficiently dealing with the relative small amount of nuclear waste from reactors for over 70 years. We are quite good at it.
And nuclear fuel is recyclable.
Here is a useful video by a professor from Illinois. He explains in detail about nuclear waste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnxksKmJa6U
The Real Bad Stuff (High-Level Wastes)
Nuclear is not cheap. It is very expensive and includes the decommissioning cost therefore it has to be promised a guaranteed above market price rate.
That’s correct – however it’s sooooo reliable, and therefore perfect for base load, it’s worth it. Also – many well paid jobs are created by operations like that, which trickles into the local economy over both the operational years and also the decomm phases
Nuclear energy has been deliberately made expensive by adopting the “Linear, No Threshold” approach, in a nutshell based on the idea that even the most trivial amount of radiation is dangerous.
In fact, low levels of radiation are health promoting, there are numerous health spas where the waters are mildly radioactive (Badgastein and Hofgastein, both in Austria, for example) with libraries of scientific data demonstrating their health benefits.
Obviously, high levels of radiation are extremely dangerous, but the mandated gross over-design of shielding wastes a fortune.
Fair enough, then paint your teeth with radium! It’ll make them glow in the dark and no side effects at all!
The UK used to be world leaders in nuclear power and energy- look at the experimental reactors. It did a lot of research eg the experimental reactors at Winfrith in Dorset with DRAGON, ZEBRA, HECTOR etc. All being decommissioned now. But due to lack of foresight has been abandoned, and hence we have lost expertise.
But hey the greenies don’t like them. They shouldn’t like windmills and the shiny bits of glass/metal either as that involves mining. But they do as the mining is all hidden away in another part of the world.
I think the sad thing about the world is that there is no debate about the important issues, at least in parliament. We just go with whoever shouts the loudest. Same with this, and it is the same with covid.
As you say all public debate has been smothered. But there is now a chance with 5 Reform MPs. Reform’s manifesto specifically repudiates Net Zero. We should all canvas Reform’s MPs to raise the issue in Parliament as often as possible.
Good luck to them. A few questions need to be asked, mainly how are we going to achieve net zero without bankrupting our society, but also how to achieve net zero globally. No point in challenging whether we need to too early- if people see it is ridiculous and un-achievable, then they might question the science.
And before we ask those – we need to ask ‘why do we need to get to net zero? / where the science / facts that prove CO2 level minor adjustments, that appear to have moved for the life of earth, is an actual problem
The type of power generation that does not seem to attract much publicity at present is tidal power. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tidal-energy/ Perhaps it is not popular with those that are “green”, given the concerns about it’s effect on wildlife – but then, wind turbines have their own problems. Depends on whether you prefer birds over fish, in simple terms.
Expensive…try fracking first, or drilling
Yes, there is a bit of commerical and cyclical power available from tidal in a very few places around UK and world, but capital and on-going costs comparitively high and MWh output extracted (not efficiently) from the approaching tide is pretty small. Not worth investment by anyone. Sad (and worse) the gov’t invests.
Thames Barage was one of them that has been considered many many times:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage
I see your link to the Severn barrage idea – that’s in my neck of the woods, and the nimby in me wouldn’t like to see a fundamental change to the river Severn. In practical terms, putting any machinery in salt water is a maintainance nightmare – super harsh environment even when times are good, occasional storms can cause absolute havoc and destruction
For flood defence.
There have been schems for tidal barrage on the Severn (see your Wiki link) and this was designed to provide a second road and rail crossing. But it didn’t meet Treasury cost / benefit analysiss in the early 1960s (yes, they actually did that then! How quaint!). And there were serious concerns about river shipping and (seemingly the most important factor) the effect on ducks and other wildlife.
Our French chums just went ahead and built the barrage at Rance, I believe still operational. But nuclear power is enormously more efficient.
Tidal power is monstrously expensive and intermittent.
The original “”Net Zero 2030” scheme dating from 2009, had much tidal power and more wave power as part of the plan. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s pounds have been spent on “pilot” schemes. I don’t think any lasted for twelve months.
Few people realise how much money has been frittered away already, on this ludicrous, magical thinking hoax.
“I do not believe nuclear power should be sold either as a solution to the non-existent ‘climate crisis’ or as a short-term solution to Britain’s energy crisis.”
yes!
Terrific piece. Thanks.
Even before COVID I attended a lecture on small modular nuclear reactors. The speaker noted that they can be self cooling. and could therefore be situated almost anywhere in the country, a major advantage over the legacy nuclear monsters we are used to.
So self-cooling nuclear reactors are by no means a new concept.
Yet our scientifically illiterate politicians’ obsession with green energy again places us in a very dangerous position in the near future.
If we are to rely on only a single conventional nuclear power station for our backup power supply for our absurd intermittent ‘green’ power generation obsession in the future, it is entirely predictable what strategy an opponent might adopt to bring us instantly to our knees should the predicted war come about, whether in three or even ten years time. Sustainability needs to be tempered by resilience, a concept of which our utterly incompetent politicians appear to be entirely unaware.
They wouldn’t even have to hit the power station itself – just take out a few of the main pylons connected nearby – game over
The fault lies with then poor quality of recruits into politics over decades. This is largely down to their leaders and has been possible because of the uncompetitive nature of UK politics: it is blue or red and their policies overlap to the point there is little difference between them.
Its politicians as administrators. MP’s barely have to have any beliefs. Just turn up in your late 20’s, early 30’s after doing nothing much, vote the way you’re told and the bureaucrats will take care of the hard work while you dream of what sort of non-exec roles with charities and think tanks you might get when you want to earn some proper money.
Or perhaps the popularity of the Civil Service for new recruits, compared with private sector industry.
Remember that the Chinese are trying to “raise” living standards and develop, whereas we in the west (except Trump) are trying to lower living standards in line with the UN and WEF dogma that the wealthy western middle classes lifestyles are “unsustainable”. —-Our own political class are fully onboard with this eco socialism and all back NET ZERO.
These people are EVIL in the real sense of the word.
We don’t need nuclear power just build coal power stations plus some gas and get rid of wind and solar.
But note: nuclear is not suitable to provide back up to intermittent wind and solar.
I think I’d agree with the French approach on this one, as much as that grates!
Ultimately a mixture of options is what you need, and that was the strategy until the 1990s when the politicians took over from the engineers
There is also a “liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor” pilot plant located in northwest China.
Here is a useful explanation of what happened at Chernobyl because it is better to be knowledgeable than fearful to avoid accidents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCbms6umE_o
While we are on this subject the same professor discusses evidence of natural nuclear reactor in Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMjXAAxgR-M
It has been obvious for many years Britain is not serious about nuclear power. Under this government it will be kidded further down the road.
The Tories, no matter what they said, and Labour are wedded to ‘renewable’ energy and storage. Any sane person knows this will not work but Labour will spaff multiple billions of pound to prove it doesn’t work.
Nuclear is the answer, but not in Britain it seems.
The article says “Some are fission, some fusion, some hybrids. But these possibilities have not been explored, much less invested in.”
Fusion – Seriously? It’s had tons of money chucked at it for decades, and the answer is always ‘it’s 30 years away’. As a viable cost-effective source of energy, fusion is a pipe dream, just as renewables are.
I’m all for nuclear power, but fusion is diverting time and resource from fission, and that’s the future.
Coal remains the cheapest source of energy and the reserves of coal are huge. There is also enough known natural gas reserves in shale alone to power the earth for centuries. Cheap energy is the driver of growth, wealth and prosperity. The potential in nuclear power to provide limitless supply of cheap energy to fuel growth and prosperity forever is there. Investment and development is needed. The climate change agenda is all about limiting growth, wealth and prosperity.
A picture paints a thousand words? The graphics below show who emits the most CO2 (fake pollution) and of course this uses a dirty brown colour. On the right are deaths from indoor pollution (real pollution) which correlates with the poorest countries and therefore those that emit the least amount of CO2. Strangely a clean blue colour is used. Obviously India and China appear high in both and that is because there is still significant poverty both, but falling because of the burning of fossil fuels.
Thinking further of the deaths from indoor air pollution – as almost no houses in the West are hermetically sealed with air filtration used to clean outside air the data on the right shows the general air quality in the West to be very clean.
You could probably change the word ‘limiting’ in your last sentence to ‘redirecting’… to certain very powerful people
This is very similar to the UKAEA’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_reactor at Winfrith mentioned above, which I saw while on a course in the late 70s, while working at Dounreay. I note its first criticality (startup) was 1965.
I guess we’ve lost our 50 year lead . . .