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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2508 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 4, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I’ve recently become quite enamoured with the idea of offshore nuclear power, as laid out in this presentation.

The benefits seem quite numerous:

  • the possibility of mass producing standardised power stations at significantly reduced cost

  • export business model

  • reducing the risks posed by tsunamis and earthquakes

  • sidestepping the NIMBY problems that normally emerge with these kind of projects

Anyone here able to point out why this is likely to be a terribly stupid idea in practice?

If you're interested in doing more research on this, there's a company called Karpowerships doing it with marine diesel barges (now with the option of running off delivered LNG).

One big difference is that they moor in port and don't have to pay crews to live on ships. Paying the oil rig wage premium to nuclear techs would be expensive, especially since the ones who enjoy living on boats probably stayed in the navy lol.

It's also much cheaper to build stuff that sits in a sheltered port: the substations on karpower's barges look like regular land ones with some anti-rust paint.

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