Feb 2 (Reuters) - State-owned China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) has signed a contract in Argentina to build the $8 billion Atucha III nuclear power plant using China’s Hualong One technology, reviving a deal that had been stalled for years.
Well I guess there goes the neighborhood
China inks $8 bln nuclear power plant deal in Argentina | Reuters.
Colossal waste of money, so much cheaper to use small modular reactors.
Argentina and China are happy. The foothold increases. Reminds me of the story of the Camel’s nose.
It was on one of these walks that Vijay first heard the fable of the Arab and the Camel. According to this classic tale, one cold night, a camel asks his master if he can put his head in the tent for warmth. “By all means and welcome,” said the man; and the camel stretches his head into the tent. Soon after, the camel inquires if he may also bring his neck and front legs inside. Again, the master agrees.
Finally, the camel asks, “May I not stand wholly within?” With pity, the master beckons him into the warm tent. But when the camel comes forward it becomes clear that the tent is too small for them both. “I think,” the camel said, “that there is not room for both of us here. It will be best for you to stand outside, as you are the smaller; there will then be room enough for me.” And with that, the man is forced outside of his tent.
Argentina is our tent?
Is Ukraine?
Oh Sneaky, that was good
Ouch…
Too good in fact.
It’s a 1200 MW plant. The biggest modular plants are only 50 MW.
And 24 of them would be far cheaper.
Can someone give me a crash course in when expansionism is good and when it is bad?
I’m having trouble keeping up.
About $6 billion at current price estimates, but that is only the cost of the units themselves, and they won’t be available (hypothetically) in such quantity until 2029 at the earliest. It is not nearly the slam dunk that you suggest it is.
Depends on which side of the bed one tries to get out from.
Is it a heavy water, or a light water design?
small commercial tech is still not that common.
heavy water they are based on Canadian design they use natural low grade fuel.
They are Canadian reactor, China is simply building them.
China / India are the two biggest buyers of them since the government gave up patients.
Canada sold the right to a private Canadian company to push for more small scale reactors.
I personal not a big fan of the sale.
So PU 239 naturally occurs in the fuel rods during operations.
no clue that is above my pay-grade, my friend is a nuclear engineer tried to explain to me once at lunch made no sense.
Heavy reactors produce PU239 (weapons grade plutonium) in the operations phase of running the reactor. The rods make the purest and most stable of this isotope during the first 4 weeks of operations with new fuel rods. The rods are then removed from the reactor, cooled in ponds for, 4-5 months, then it is a simple chemical leaching process to separate the weapons grade PU 239 from the low enriched uranium fuel rods. Basically the fuel rods are immersed in an acid that only leaches the PU 239 into solution. Then the acid solution is removed and a catalist to break the solution bond is added. The PU 239 falls out of solution as near pure fissil material, ready for casting into a warhead core. And as PU239 achieves the same blast yield as a uranium core of nearly twice the weight, Plutonium is the preferred fissile material for missile warheads.
