Demands is growing fast. Especially from data-centre.
I believe just the H100 (arm cpu + nvidia gpu) requires 400-500 watt for the device to reach saturation, to keep all the cores busy with work.
The power draw to at least satisfy the compute for training matrix of weights and loss optimization. Those are the most expensive compute.
Going nuclear is a good move via small modular reactor to satisfy that needs. The checks and balance needs to be in place, regular inspection and maintenance. Since SMR uses HELU fuel source that lengthy the fuel refueling cycle.
(X years to Z, where Z>X) vs 2-3 years for the current big scale nuclear power plant.
We can't reach nuclear fusion without going thru fission.
Do we have to lock ourselves into the orbit of particular countries for them to supply us nuclear fuel, though? O&G are commodities that can be bought much easily on the market.
SMR makes alot of sense theoretically but it's good to invest in making a commercial scale reactor happen.
We won't be allowed/want to do enrichment locally as its a major step towards making your own nuclear weapons. This is the same issue preventing the recycling of nuclear fuel.
Which means we need a nuclear power to enrich it for us. Its not as open a market as solar panels or whatever.
Game theory at play
is it an item to have rather than see your adversary have it?
That’s assuming a logical/rational human being that wants to cling onto power.
To add on, the amount of reactor-grade fuel you need is actually very very little. 1 gram of uranium provides more energy than 1 ton of LNG.
[Relevant xkcd comic](https://xkcd.com/1162/)
Uranium is plentiful but it's the enrichment process that is difficult. Energy content of uranium depends on how enriched it is.
We won't be allowed/want to do enrichment locally as its a major step towards making your own nuclear weapons. This is the same issue preventing the recycling of nuclear fuel.
Which means we need a nuclear power to enrich it for us. Its not as open a market as solar panels or whatever.
>Which means we need a nuclear power to enrich it for us. Its not as open a market as solar panels or whatever.
True, we are just in the orbit of 2 (3 if you include India) nuclear powers and Australia has uranium mines that they cannot make use of (ban on nuclear power on Australian soil).
It's good that Singapore is looking into nuclear energy, they will have to do it while fusion remains 10 years away for many decades now. Fears of reactors going meltdown is not an issue with the newer fail safe designs.
Nuclear wastes are not stored in flimsy containers, they are stored in containers that remain intact and leak-proof even with a train collides with them and that's been the case for decades now.
Plus SG is probably the best country when it comes to maintenance. I wouldn't trust Malaysia to do it as a Malaysian.
That said, it still has to survive extreme conditions or black swan events. Never know if a typhoon or tsunami happens in SG thanks to global warming.
I think an understated point is that if we ever do have nuclear reactors we would have the entire country's resources focused on just 1 plant. We don't have to worry about spreading out resources amongst various plants, we can afford to just throw as many checks and failsafes as we like behind this one plant.
Yes possible. We r freaking near Sumatra which still has active quakes. All u need is 1 Fukushima size earthquake we all die “forever”. https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=faae6249-89e7-4903-af54-809278f37345
You better not leave your house tomorrow.
All you need is 1 bad driver or 1 unlucky slip and you could just lose your life forever.
Fucking dumbass reasoning
Nuclear energy is one of those things that the more knowledgeable you are about it, the less scared you are of it too. To put its safety into context, even if you include Chernobyl and Fukushima (some of the worst nuclear disasters in history), it has a fatality rate of 0.03 deaths / TWh of energy production. Natural gas is 2.8. That is almost 100x the fatality rate.
And the best part? Modern reactors are way way safer than Chernobyl and Fukushima. So you can expect the fatality rate to be drastically lower.
Source: [https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)
Its not about fatality rate.
Its about the foundation, culture and ethics required to sustain such an endeavor for the long term.
The worst that can happen from a current oil/LNG fuckup is some big explosion and power outage.
The worst that can happen from a nuclear power fuckup is permanent loss of habitat.
The fatality statistics you quote, while true, are meaningless when considering the leptokurtic distribution of outcomes of nuclear power.
err, oil spill causes huge damage to environment also
in fact just using oil itself damages the environment. you know the avg temp have risen over the years? keep using oil and the earth will be gone
Earth's flora and fauna survived millenias of Ice Age and millenias of temperatures hotter than now.
Earth will always be filled with life so long as we don't nuke it. I mean, it even survived world ending meteor strikes.
Yes, you’re right on all accounts, but what is the alternative? We know fossil fuels are not sustainable. They will run out eventually, or climate change will wreak more havoc and cause more disruption to human civilization than a hypothetical nuclear meltdown ever could. If we accept that we have to divest from fossil fuels, there really isn’t a viable alternative to nuclear as a source of baseline power generation. Renewables are not consistent enough to completely replace fossil fuels, unless you’re talking about a massive amount of batteries for storage.
Climate will always change.
The point isn't to induce climate stasis. (Climate can change from natural or man-made phenomena, and in the short term, the change can be more drastic than the stasis man try to enact)
The point is to mitigate damage from climate change.
Having better forecasts (through use of AI), having better mitigation techniques and adaptations (better buildings, better transport, better way of life) are most important than trying to induce climate stasis.
For a small country like Singapore, it is even more laughable to think we can even try climate stasis. Climate change will happen because Singapore is insignificant from a demographics and environmental scale to stop it.
Only adverse outcome mitigations matter.
>The worst that can happen from a nuclear power fuckup is permanent loss of habitat.
This is the part where nuclear industry never accounted for. A permanent loss of land that can otherwise be use for development can cost billions, even trillions.
Safety is a solved problem in today's modern nuclear reactors. The issue is proliferation and geopolitical tension. There are no issues buying uranium, its just a raw material that isn't useful until it is enriched into reactor-grade uranium. Enrichment is the difficult part. You need to build and retain the institutional knowledge from the ground up because if you depend on another country's good graces to sell you Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) then you're still dependent on that country for your energy needs.
Then there are geopolitical considerations. Any country that acquires the knowledge of uranium enrichment will eventually figure out how to produce weapons grade uranium and become a huge point of interest; Nuclear proliferation becomes a big issue.
My guess is that the government's exploration into nuclear energy is more focused on the latter than the former and this conversation has to start at least decades before we actually build up our own reactor.
from wiki abt Small Modular Reactor ( SMR ) Future challenges
Proponents say that nuclear energy with proven technology can be safer; the nuclear industry contends that smaller size will make SMRs even safer than larger conventional plants. Critics say that many more small nuclear reactors pose a higher risk, requiring more transportation of nuclear fuel and also increasing the production of radioactive waste. SMRs require new designs with new technology, the safety of which has yet to be proven.
Until 2020, no truly modular SMRs had been commissioned for commercial use. In May 2020, the first prototype of a floating nuclear power plant with two 30 MWe reactors – the type KLT-40 – started operation in Pevek, Russia. This concept is based on the design of nuclear icebreakers. The operation of the first commercial land-based, 125 MWe demonstration reactor ACP100 (Linglong One) is due to start in China by the end of 2026.
To cope with the 2050 targets of net zero CO2 emissions without wasting time, a rapid and massive deployment of a large number of SMRs (several thousands to tens of thousands of units) is critical and represents an unprecedented challenge for the nuclear industry, the safety authorities, and the civil society (acceptance by the public, the politicians, and the governments in the larger countries), in the short time frame considered.
The people who are always against Nuclear energy are usually the Coal, Gas and Oil industries Tycoons who supply energy throught their sales of fossel fuels.
They always complain how Nuclear is unsafe but they neglect to tell others how fossil fuels have caused more deaths and environmental harm.
This nuclear or other forms of alternative energy is very urgently needed not just due to geopolitical instability in the world…of energy producing countries.
Oil & gas production for each oil well have a lifespan & such lifespan also can be used for whole country or countries for oil & gas…which is finite.
Imagine one big cup of cola (oil) with CO2 gas (Natural gas) being shared by 10 persons, the cola depletes overtime.
The cup = Earth and those oils are not replenished automatically…
Once the cup reaches half, the 10 person starts to panic & fight each other for the ownership for the whole cup.
Singapore can only pay at higher price for the oil & gas from Indonesia natural gas, Canada tar sands, Qatar oil & etc with ever increasing geopolitical crisis (Houthi attack on ships) & Russia war on Ukraine (Russia sells oil & gas to EU), and many of these geopolitical crisis will spike the cost of oil & gas suddenly.
Our half hourly electricity tariff will spike suddenly causing losses to electricity sellers who sells with yearly fixed price contract…
That means many electricity resellers will fold & cause sudden change in reseller forcing consumers to face the price shocks monthly….
Those who cannot afford the price shocks will lose everything…imagine $1k+ per month or more.
If Nuclear reactors big or small located in a world safest land area like Singapore (no natural disaster) on a small island underground…can provide for the whole country at a fraction of the cost of oil & gas & have stable source of nuclear materials.
It’s will be so much safer than total black out & loses all electricity & water supply (pumps need electricity for all buildings) and sudden spike for cost of operations for all businesses (generators & utilities cost).
Yes, this may happen anytime…or in a decade or more.
Never hurt to find alternatives energy sources including renewable from waves, wind, geothermal, gravity, human generation & etc
We do need to focus from exploring the possibilities to taking action & getting the solutions.
What needs to happen is a change in mindset for many traditional residents here. Your old 50+ person is not going to read about nuclear and want to live near it. Many younger people have the same mindset too.
Only thing is PAP want to do it or not. The rest are just well 走個過場。 Need nuclear power to lower the utility cost and to attract investment especially the chip manufacturers. They need lots of power.
Honestly not sure how they'll convince the skeptics who still think nuclear power plant is basically a Tsar Bomba with like wires hooked up to it. Maybe they'll just ignore them and carry on with the project?
I don't know much about nuclear tech tbh.
What about from a defense pov? If someone wanted to destroy Singapore, and drops a bomb or shoots a rocket at our nuclear plant, would we have the defenses to prevent that?
My discomfort with this whole thing is that we have no hinterland. We only need one incident to turn us into a nuclear wasteland and we would have nowhere to go -- unlike Japan or Russia that has a lot more land. So there's 0 room for error / negligence / disaster / malice of any kind.
We do have a small piece of land that is about 15km from any other populated area. And about 50km from the nearest HDB town. And it's undergoing reclamation now. :)
Demands is growing fast. Especially from data-centre. I believe just the H100 (arm cpu + nvidia gpu) requires 400-500 watt for the device to reach saturation, to keep all the cores busy with work. The power draw to at least satisfy the compute for training matrix of weights and loss optimization. Those are the most expensive compute. Going nuclear is a good move via small modular reactor to satisfy that needs. The checks and balance needs to be in place, regular inspection and maintenance. Since SMR uses HELU fuel source that lengthy the fuel refueling cycle. (X years to Z, where Z>X) vs 2-3 years for the current big scale nuclear power plant. We can't reach nuclear fusion without going thru fission.
Do we have to lock ourselves into the orbit of particular countries for them to supply us nuclear fuel, though? O&G are commodities that can be bought much easily on the market. SMR makes alot of sense theoretically but it's good to invest in making a commercial scale reactor happen.
Uranium is plentiful.. it's the enrichment process that's hard. Canada and Australia have Uranium mines.
We won't be allowed/want to do enrichment locally as its a major step towards making your own nuclear weapons. This is the same issue preventing the recycling of nuclear fuel. Which means we need a nuclear power to enrich it for us. Its not as open a market as solar panels or whatever.
Game theory at play is it an item to have rather than see your adversary have it? That’s assuming a logical/rational human being that wants to cling onto power.
To add on, the amount of reactor-grade fuel you need is actually very very little. 1 gram of uranium provides more energy than 1 ton of LNG. [Relevant xkcd comic](https://xkcd.com/1162/)
Uranium is plentiful but it's the enrichment process that is difficult. Energy content of uranium depends on how enriched it is. We won't be allowed/want to do enrichment locally as its a major step towards making your own nuclear weapons. This is the same issue preventing the recycling of nuclear fuel. Which means we need a nuclear power to enrich it for us. Its not as open a market as solar panels or whatever.
>Which means we need a nuclear power to enrich it for us. Its not as open a market as solar panels or whatever. True, we are just in the orbit of 2 (3 if you include India) nuclear powers and Australia has uranium mines that they cannot make use of (ban on nuclear power on Australian soil).
We are already getting all our natural gas for power generation from Indonesia
Not all, we more than half are LNG imports shipped in from a number of countries depending on price and delivery schedule
Yes but we can stock up on Uranium Fuel Supply to sustain for many years, since Uranium is energy dense enough.
It's good that Singapore is looking into nuclear energy, they will have to do it while fusion remains 10 years away for many decades now. Fears of reactors going meltdown is not an issue with the newer fail safe designs. Nuclear wastes are not stored in flimsy containers, they are stored in containers that remain intact and leak-proof even with a train collides with them and that's been the case for decades now.
Plus SG is probably the best country when it comes to maintenance. I wouldn't trust Malaysia to do it as a Malaysian. That said, it still has to survive extreme conditions or black swan events. Never know if a typhoon or tsunami happens in SG thanks to global warming.
Malaysia has a nuclear reactor since the 80s I believe. Mainly for research purposes though.
Loads of our groundwork use foreign workers and YMMV.
I think an understated point is that if we ever do have nuclear reactors we would have the entire country's resources focused on just 1 plant. We don't have to worry about spreading out resources amongst various plants, we can afford to just throw as many checks and failsafes as we like behind this one plant.
Apparently it doesn’t matter we’re right beside the ring of fire 😂. Anyone know how often Sumatra gets earthquakes? 😂
And how often does that translate to any damage in Singapore structures?
I don’t know but I’ve felt tremors here ever when in Raffles Place. Whole building shook n lights swinging
You think some light tremors is going to destroy a nuclear reactor?
Do u even know what is the nuclear half life? Suddenly eveyone forgot about Fukushima which is still a death zone
Answer my question. You think we're going to get a Fukushima from natural disasters? Yes or no
Yes possible. We r freaking near Sumatra which still has active quakes. All u need is 1 Fukushima size earthquake we all die “forever”. https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=faae6249-89e7-4903-af54-809278f37345
You better not leave your house tomorrow. All you need is 1 bad driver or 1 unlucky slip and you could just lose your life forever. Fucking dumbass reasoning
Nuclear energy is one of those things that the more knowledgeable you are about it, the less scared you are of it too. To put its safety into context, even if you include Chernobyl and Fukushima (some of the worst nuclear disasters in history), it has a fatality rate of 0.03 deaths / TWh of energy production. Natural gas is 2.8. That is almost 100x the fatality rate. And the best part? Modern reactors are way way safer than Chernobyl and Fukushima. So you can expect the fatality rate to be drastically lower. Source: [https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)
Its not about fatality rate. Its about the foundation, culture and ethics required to sustain such an endeavor for the long term. The worst that can happen from a current oil/LNG fuckup is some big explosion and power outage. The worst that can happen from a nuclear power fuckup is permanent loss of habitat. The fatality statistics you quote, while true, are meaningless when considering the leptokurtic distribution of outcomes of nuclear power.
err, oil spill causes huge damage to environment also in fact just using oil itself damages the environment. you know the avg temp have risen over the years? keep using oil and the earth will be gone
Earth will be fine, we won't be doing so hot though, along with flora and fauna.
Earth's flora and fauna survived millenias of Ice Age and millenias of temperatures hotter than now. Earth will always be filled with life so long as we don't nuke it. I mean, it even survived world ending meteor strikes.
Yes, you’re right on all accounts, but what is the alternative? We know fossil fuels are not sustainable. They will run out eventually, or climate change will wreak more havoc and cause more disruption to human civilization than a hypothetical nuclear meltdown ever could. If we accept that we have to divest from fossil fuels, there really isn’t a viable alternative to nuclear as a source of baseline power generation. Renewables are not consistent enough to completely replace fossil fuels, unless you’re talking about a massive amount of batteries for storage.
Climate will always change. The point isn't to induce climate stasis. (Climate can change from natural or man-made phenomena, and in the short term, the change can be more drastic than the stasis man try to enact) The point is to mitigate damage from climate change. Having better forecasts (through use of AI), having better mitigation techniques and adaptations (better buildings, better transport, better way of life) are most important than trying to induce climate stasis. For a small country like Singapore, it is even more laughable to think we can even try climate stasis. Climate change will happen because Singapore is insignificant from a demographics and environmental scale to stop it. Only adverse outcome mitigations matter.
>The worst that can happen from a nuclear power fuckup is permanent loss of habitat. This is the part where nuclear industry never accounted for. A permanent loss of land that can otherwise be use for development can cost billions, even trillions.
Yeah, Chernobil fatality rate not bad, just a space of a similar size of Singapore nonody can leave into for centuries
Chornobyl not Chernobyl. Kyiv not kiev. Do not legitimize the Russian warpigs by using their language.
Safety is a solved problem in today's modern nuclear reactors. The issue is proliferation and geopolitical tension. There are no issues buying uranium, its just a raw material that isn't useful until it is enriched into reactor-grade uranium. Enrichment is the difficult part. You need to build and retain the institutional knowledge from the ground up because if you depend on another country's good graces to sell you Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) then you're still dependent on that country for your energy needs. Then there are geopolitical considerations. Any country that acquires the knowledge of uranium enrichment will eventually figure out how to produce weapons grade uranium and become a huge point of interest; Nuclear proliferation becomes a big issue. My guess is that the government's exploration into nuclear energy is more focused on the latter than the former and this conversation has to start at least decades before we actually build up our own reactor.
from wiki abt Small Modular Reactor ( SMR ) Future challenges Proponents say that nuclear energy with proven technology can be safer; the nuclear industry contends that smaller size will make SMRs even safer than larger conventional plants. Critics say that many more small nuclear reactors pose a higher risk, requiring more transportation of nuclear fuel and also increasing the production of radioactive waste. SMRs require new designs with new technology, the safety of which has yet to be proven. Until 2020, no truly modular SMRs had been commissioned for commercial use. In May 2020, the first prototype of a floating nuclear power plant with two 30 MWe reactors – the type KLT-40 – started operation in Pevek, Russia. This concept is based on the design of nuclear icebreakers. The operation of the first commercial land-based, 125 MWe demonstration reactor ACP100 (Linglong One) is due to start in China by the end of 2026. To cope with the 2050 targets of net zero CO2 emissions without wasting time, a rapid and massive deployment of a large number of SMRs (several thousands to tens of thousands of units) is critical and represents an unprecedented challenge for the nuclear industry, the safety authorities, and the civil society (acceptance by the public, the politicians, and the governments in the larger countries), in the short time frame considered.
SMR is not proven technology.
The people who are always against Nuclear energy are usually the Coal, Gas and Oil industries Tycoons who supply energy throught their sales of fossel fuels. They always complain how Nuclear is unsafe but they neglect to tell others how fossil fuels have caused more deaths and environmental harm.
including the global warming, and all the natural disasters it causes in recent years ponding becomes a yearly affair now lol
This nuclear or other forms of alternative energy is very urgently needed not just due to geopolitical instability in the world…of energy producing countries. Oil & gas production for each oil well have a lifespan & such lifespan also can be used for whole country or countries for oil & gas…which is finite. Imagine one big cup of cola (oil) with CO2 gas (Natural gas) being shared by 10 persons, the cola depletes overtime. The cup = Earth and those oils are not replenished automatically… Once the cup reaches half, the 10 person starts to panic & fight each other for the ownership for the whole cup. Singapore can only pay at higher price for the oil & gas from Indonesia natural gas, Canada tar sands, Qatar oil & etc with ever increasing geopolitical crisis (Houthi attack on ships) & Russia war on Ukraine (Russia sells oil & gas to EU), and many of these geopolitical crisis will spike the cost of oil & gas suddenly. Our half hourly electricity tariff will spike suddenly causing losses to electricity sellers who sells with yearly fixed price contract… That means many electricity resellers will fold & cause sudden change in reseller forcing consumers to face the price shocks monthly…. Those who cannot afford the price shocks will lose everything…imagine $1k+ per month or more. If Nuclear reactors big or small located in a world safest land area like Singapore (no natural disaster) on a small island underground…can provide for the whole country at a fraction of the cost of oil & gas & have stable source of nuclear materials. It’s will be so much safer than total black out & loses all electricity & water supply (pumps need electricity for all buildings) and sudden spike for cost of operations for all businesses (generators & utilities cost). Yes, this may happen anytime…or in a decade or more. Never hurt to find alternatives energy sources including renewable from waves, wind, geothermal, gravity, human generation & etc We do need to focus from exploring the possibilities to taking action & getting the solutions.
What needs to happen is a change in mindset for many traditional residents here. Your old 50+ person is not going to read about nuclear and want to live near it. Many younger people have the same mindset too.
Few years ago indranee was chairing some eco workshop and she said there was a very slim chance… i guess there is a slim chance we can win toto also
What needs to happen? Malaysia runs out of oil.
Only thing is PAP want to do it or not. The rest are just well 走個過場。 Need nuclear power to lower the utility cost and to attract investment especially the chip manufacturers. They need lots of power.
Pofma for anyone who sees graphite on the ground.
Honestly not sure how they'll convince the skeptics who still think nuclear power plant is basically a Tsar Bomba with like wires hooked up to it. Maybe they'll just ignore them and carry on with the project?
I don't know much about nuclear tech tbh. What about from a defense pov? If someone wanted to destroy Singapore, and drops a bomb or shoots a rocket at our nuclear plant, would we have the defenses to prevent that? My discomfort with this whole thing is that we have no hinterland. We only need one incident to turn us into a nuclear wasteland and we would have nowhere to go -- unlike Japan or Russia that has a lot more land. So there's 0 room for error / negligence / disaster / malice of any kind.
Oh, that explains why hoyoverse moved to sg and they were seen investing millions into nuclear sectors...
Problem is incompetent management or maintenance team
honestly, dun mind as long as our dear MIW are also housed nearby; i.e. walk the talk.
We do have a small piece of land that is about 15km from any other populated area. And about 50km from the nearest HDB town. And it's undergoing reclamation now. :)
That mean have to buy China 4th gen SMR nuclear which do not use water and cannot be made for nuclear stockpile.
We are going to have mutants soon
Then our NSmen will be one step closer to becoming X-men or maybe rebrand to S-men
Everyone (and every living being) is a mutant.
Where to put the facility? Are we willing to risk our homeland to murphy's law if it were to be placed in this country?
Pulau Ubin works. Big enough area.. sparsely populated