Hyundai plans US micro nuclear reactor facility
Cari Cooney | January 15, 2022
Source: Hyundai Engineering
Engineering affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, Hyundai Engineering has announced a plan to build micro modular nuclear reactors for a developer in the United States. The company plans to invest around $30 million in Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, giving the South Korean business the exclusive rights to the engineering, procurement and creation for all MMR projects of the Seattle-based company.
The MMR energy system consists of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, which is considered safer, cleaner and more cost-effective. It distributes carbon-free power with minimal upkeep and produces hydrogen.
Micro reactors and green energy
Smaller reactors are becoming more attractive in clean energy initiatives to achieve carbon neutrality. They offer economic efficiency and compared to large scale nuclear power plants, are considerably safer. During this development, Hyundai Engineering is creating MMR green hydrogen production technology in South Korea. An MMR demonstration in a Canadian plant paved the way for the company to make plans for executing a high-temperature gas reactor with a 100 MWe-class large-capacity electrolysis hydrogen production facility.
How much nuclear waste per MKW produced?
What happens to the nuclear waste?
What Papadoc said. More generally, it is a fairly common practice to tout the upside benefits of any technology while minimizing the downside. One way this shows up is the privatization of the upside (profits) while socializing the downside (cleanup). Every Superfund site started out as a profitable opportunity.
This has been the case for dumping waste into rivers, smokestack emissions (from power plants), nuclear waste (Yucca Mountain), etc.
With this sort of history it would seem important to ask many questions about any possible socialized costs of an energy production system that is said simply to produce hydrogen as a by product. And this is doubly important if profit is a motive for the development and deployment of the technology.
In reply to #2
The cleanup must be included in the cost to determine the marketable price of the product. There must be a profit or the project won't happen. But all costs including cleanup and safeguards must be included.
In reply to #3
You have hit upon the crux of the matter: The profits are (often much) greater when the downside costs are socialized (ignored). Google "Superfund Cleanup".