What Is The Ideal Nuclear Reactor?

Before an anti-nuclear lot scream “no reactors!” view what this spectrum of technology offers (in plain English and in order of: worst designs, first)…

1. CO2 Cooled, Graphite Moderated Reactor: Fuelled on few percent of Uranium 235 (U235 –is only 0.7202% of all uranium) this reactor works because (somewhat counter intuitively) the chances of neutron radiation splitting another uranium atom is increased, whenever slowed down by something called a Moderator.
-usually graphite. CO2 gas isn’t very good at cooling but (by not absorbing much of the neutron radiation itself -compared with water) this type of reactor, produces far more plutonium, than almost any other reactor. That happens because (by adding a neutron to the relatively stable & naturally abundant Depletive Uranium (U238) Plutonium (Pu239) is then created (the most toxic element of them all, and incidentally -or not, totally manmade).

One problem with using graphite is (it’s originally flat) carbon chain structure, becomes deformed by neutron bombardment, and this results in Potential Energy becoming trapped in it (rather like if you squeeze a spring or even crush a can). This energy (actually Called Wigner Energy en.wikipedia.org... ) is prone to spontaneously releasing itself, and whenever it does, huge spikes in temperature are caused. To cope with this, the reactor core must be (regularly) rapidly heated, and then cooled. The “cooling” is done by inserting Control Rods (which simply absorb some of the reactions, neutron radiation). Because neutrons are absorbed, heat production is reduced, whilst the rectors physical cooling (with circulating gas or water) remains just the same (vital if you need a constant amount of heat production like all electricity generating stations do).

As you can see from the above link, the Wigner Effect (when not properly understood) caused a serious nuclear accident, but the effects existence, means all graphite reactor, need constant monitoring. Graphite is often used because it’s relatively cheap, and very high temperature resistant.

Gas cooled reactors aren’t all bad (but without getting ahead of myself) this one sucks! Thankfully it’s now (widely) considered, obsolete.

2. Light water reactor: This is the type most commonly used (and therefore shown most often on TV) but in my view is still appallingly bad. It’s exactly the same as the above, except (distilled) tap water is used as the coolant.

3. The Heavy Water Reactor: This works exactly the same way as the light water reactor, except no graphite is needed. This is because heavy water (unlike ordinary water) slows down neutron radiation, to the right speed, all by itself. Heavy Water weighs more than ordinary water, because it has Heavy Hydrogen, and this is heavy because it contains 1 proton and 1 neutron (whilst ordinary hydrogen is only one neutron). Heavy water exists naturally in all water (at 0.25%) and is not radioactive. However because it is a real pain to extract, it means Heavy Water reactors cost far more than Light Water Reactors.

Types of Boiling…
4. Boiling Water Reactors: For the above 3 reactors you can boil water under just enough pressure to drive the turbines.
5. Pressurised Reactors: Or (slightly more risky, but far more economically) you can boil water under pretty much whatever level of pressure you like. The main advantage is that the higher the pressure, the higher the temperature water is before it can boil (water only boils at 100 centigrade at normal pressures, but will boil in a vacuum, or boil at temperatures (normally) hot enough to melt lead from certain volcanic vents, coming from the ocean floor). The reason why this is a good thing (for an investor) is because you can lower the pressure the water is under (once it comes out of the reactor at its higher than normal temperature) you can therefore make far more steam from it, and subsequently electricity, from exactly the same volume of water.
However it’s obviously less safe, because (the fact it’s under higher pressure) means it’s more likely to leak –burst potentially, and that would be very bad news because you’ve then got a Core designed to be cooled by water, but which boils water (under normal pressure) almost instantly into steam. It therefore follows that the cheapest (but most safety insane) of all the reactors mentioned above, is a: Light Water, Graphite Moderated, Pressurised Water, Reactor.

6. The Pebble Bed Reactor: en.wikipedia.org... with either uranium, or with plutonium added too, this reactor is so called because unlike all the above reactors it doesn’t have Fuel Rods (i.e. pipes containing metal fuel pellets, which contain the fuel). Rather it has spherical balls (that look rather like pebbles) made from a specially designed mixture of fuel and graphite. These balls are simply placed on top of each other, in a metal container that looks like a dustbin without a proper bottom. Simply placing (enough) of these pebbles in close proximity to one another is enough to start the nuclear reaction. No control rods are needed because the reaction controls itself (whenever the pebbles get very hot, the frequency at which neutron radiation leaves their fuel atoms, changes enough, to make it less likely to split another fuel atom).
This means you can take an axe to its cooling system, or even put monkeys in its control room for 10,000 years, and never get meltdown! This is called Passive Safety (i.e. a reactor whose safety components don’t need humans or moving parts –both of which could obviously fail).

It is cooled with helium gas, which has two advantages: The first is that Helium loses half its radioactivity every 0.8 seconds (at most). The second is that if it leaks it only heads in one direction (which is ultimately about 80 miles above our heads). Only hydrogen would be more economical, but nobody has been stupid enough to use that yet, as obviously (hot) hydrogen explodes whenever in contact with oxygen.

The main disadvantage: Is that it creates stacks (as in literally heaps) of nuclear waste, and for that reason is not my favourite reactor. That said the type of nuclear waste created can be at least 97% be recycled into new nuclear fuel, using something called Nuclear Reprocessing. Here’s a British 1997 TV advert for it: uk.adforum.com...

This massive waste production is caused by something called Nuclear Transmutation which is when elements (which weren’t in the reactor originally –like plutonium) are created by the neutron radiation adding or taking away neutrons from literally anything inside the reactor. Transmutation causes the creation of at least some of every element in the Periodic Table. This isn’t a safety issue, as the high temperature of any reactor causes them to react (and therefore chemically stabilise themselves) near instantly. But they do absorb neutron radiation, and this can slow –or even stop, the carefully arranged nuclear activity in any core. But all the other reactors (so far mentioned) are largely immune to it. This is because every time Transmutation creates more rubbish, a few more control rods are removed (and therefore the reaction can continue for 5 years, until the 3% of waste that’s built up in the rods finally has to be removed). But the pebble bed reactor doesn’t have this option, so it’s fuel needs to be replaced almost constantly.

7. Fast Neutron (Breeder) Reactors…
These work by having nuclear fuel at such high concentrations that you don’t need a moderator to slow down their neutron radiation (so much radiation is being produced, from the high fuel concentration, that some radiation is naturally at the right speed anyway). They can be powered by either Uranium of nuclear waste (like Plutonium) and are famous for being to create more Plutonium than they consume (through converting the relatively atomically stable, yet almost worthless depleted uranium U238 into P23).
They are cooled down using metals, for different reasons…
8. Liquid Sodium: This (has been) the favourite coolant because it looks great on paper. The downside is that liquid sodium spontaneously bursts into flames, whenever in contact with either water or air! Stupid idea, but not stupid enough to stop a number being built (then against all calculations they had leaks, and have basically given up ever since).
9. Mercury: This is what the reactors on British Nuclear Submarines do: Boil mercury, use the vapour to power a turbine, then condense the mercury (on pipes filled with water). This water in the pipes boils, and so powers yet another turbine (i.e. the process is efficient). Mercury is obviously incredibly chemically toxic, but (despite the crew being at sea, in a confined space, for often months at a time) it obviously doesn’t leak enough to harm the same people, our government (in an emergency) intends to fight a nuclear war.
10. Lead cooled reactor: This works brilliantly because the lead absorbs a lot of the unwanted neutron radiation, which would otherwise damages the reactor through transmutation. The hot lead (in pipes) directly boils the water. Lead is obviously also chemically toxic, but nowhere near as bad as mercury and because it’s not actually being boiled the chances of any escaping is remote too. Unlike liquid sodium the stuff is not corrosive. The reason why the idiots ever considered using molten sodium is because it conducts heats 4 times as well –and is therefore more economical (at least on paper!)

12. The Integral Reactor: en.wikipedia.org... This another kind of Fast Neutron Reactor but deserves its own category, as is frankly a work of pure genius! However there are two possible versions: The molten Sodium cooled one = bad, and the molten lead cooled one = very good. The reason why it’s different is because if all the other Fast Neutron Reactors do (somehow) go into meltdown there is very little you can do stop them. Sure: You could obviously insert Control Rods, or inject Neutron Poisons (elements that absorb radiation particularly well) into the core, but this requires equipment (operated by human-monkeys to work –be used on time!). The Integral Reactor is different (in that like the Pebble Bed Reactor) it uses Passive Safety, but unlike the Pebble Bed Reactor does so without any of the additional nuclear waste. The way this works, is that the cladding (immediately around the reactor) reflects neutrons back onto the reactor core in order for the reactor to remain critical (i.e. work). But the cladding has a combination of carefully position holes and slits, which (if the reactor overheats) expand in size (like all metal does whenever heated) to the point they align more, as well as letting more neutron radiation out by virtue of their bigger size (this radiation reactors containment wall –creating almost no heat). Without so many neutrons being reflected back onto the core, the reactor no longer contains a Critical Mass, and subsequently the reaction rapidly grinds to a halt (since more neutrons are being emitted into space, than used to keep the reaction going). In addition you can still insert Control Rods, and Neutron Poisons (to prevent the reactor getting to this stage in first place –but if you didn’t, it will look after itself).

The Integral Reactor was so good that it offered to solve all our energy needs, whilst disarming nuclear critics. I think that’s why it’s funding was (in the US at least) cancelled i.e. because if nuclear too cheap it will end the need for coal, gas, and oil, and this has the potential to seriously anger vested (evil) interests.

Mid-Summary…
So far we’ve looked at all the main types of reactor in order (of what I believe to be) worst first.

But…
They all have two things in common: They consume Uranium 235 which is rare, and the production of which results in depletive uranium. I dislike DU intensely because it’s being used in (so-called) conventional weapons, although (realistically) we could shut down all nuclear reactors tomorrow, and still have enough U238 for (literally) a hundred Iraq wars, and the same applies to plutonium for nuclear weapons (more than enough exists within the West to wipe the world out as many times, as our leaders could consider!).
Or they use plutonium, and can create far more than they destroy (a double edged sword). Only (proper) exception being the proposed…

13. GE Hitachi, PRISM reactor

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has proposed to the U.K. government to build an advanced nuclear reactor that would consume the country’s stockpile of surplus plutonium. ansnuclearcafe.org...

Plutonium, from being regarded as a waste product, is starting to be regarded by the government as a resource. King said it would be needed to fuel new power stations, because stocks of uranium are being rapidly depleted, and only a fraction of the mined supplies are suitable for use in generating power. www.guardian.co.uk...

Whilst this all makes precious little difference to countries that already have nuclear weapons –or could make them easily, it means it’s unwise to export the technology to backward places like Africa –the Middle East generally. This is a problem, because their massive population (begin) to truly catch up with the West they’re going to want things –like the family of 30’s first (ever) TV.

Which brings us to my favourite reactor…
14. The Thorium Reactor: en.wikipedia.org... This reactor has been unlucky. It’s never done bad to deserve it’s bad luck –all it ever promised was to solve all man’s, carbon free, energy needs (just like the Integral Reactor) but in a way that would make nuclear weapon production (almost) impossible. Thorium is almost as abundant as lead, and there’s thought to be enough US reserves (alone) to meet all America’s energy needs for 1000 years. In addition Passive Safety can employed, and it’s much less likely to go into meltdown anyway.
Too good to be true? No. Too good to allowed to happen (yet) certainly.

Short Intro: Thorium Energy Benefits 4.15 minutes
www.youtube.com...
Motherboard TV: The Thorium Dream (add first)
www.youtube.com...
The best is 21 minutes into this video, where they explain the reasons why we don’t already have Thorium reactors. Unsurprisingly all the reasons are totslly rotten.
Pioneered by the same guy who created The Light Water Reactor. He (just like Victor Frankenstein, who only too late realised how bad his own creation was) got fired by US Gangster President (Richard Nixon) for contradicting the presents corrupt, corporate interest driven “science”.
en.wikipedia.org...
It’s not even like this reactor would be bad for the economy, or too expensive to build. It would simply demand a change in direction, which in turn would cause vested interests to loose investments they had already made.

Will we ever see it? I don’t know. All I do know is I prefer (almost) any nuclear energy over fossil fuel energy, for the reasons laid out in this article…
nextbigfuture.com...

Even So: 3 Important Questions To Ask About That Nuclear Reactor They’re Building…
1. Does it have Passive Safety? If not = very bad.
2. Is it cooled (directly) by water? We all saw the hydrogen explosion caused by water in Fukushima
3. Is it cooled by Liquid Sodium? If so = bad, mercury = ok but not by my house! If lead = perfect –not least as they’ve sacrificed at least some profit, for increased safety.

The best reactors EVER MADE,,but NOT ALLOWED,,
too continue
CANDU Reactors in the 60's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RANT BELOW
(this is 2012,,,and that piece of # Westinghouse Model,,,send the cooling fluid,,up as high as u can,, too cool the spent Rods,,brilliant,, guess not one one engineer knew that fluid flowed down-hill,,seems it will do that quite naturally ,,in case u wanted too cool something Elecriticality,, lol ya put the stuff that goes boom up on the roof,,,,
and pump up too it
BRILLIANT.

Made in Canada

The best reactor will be one in a museum dedicated to a time when the human race was ran by idiots.

I'd prefer underground or off the planet reactors. Forget how they're built.

The best nuclear reactor is the Sun. It puts out tremendous amounts of free energy and it is the safest reactor imaginable, far away......

How about a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor?

BobatHome Thanks for that Bob! That's an amazing reactor I new very little about -most importantly of all it's in production. Here's more here: www.nuclearfaq.ca...

woogleuk The best reactor will be one in a museum dedicated to a time when the human race was ran by idiots.

Aren’t you getting nuclear reactors confused with wind turbines? They’d surely fit far more easily into a display cabinet.
And why are reactors with Passive Safety, such a bad idea? –Especially if they’re run on Thorium?

PS: I agree with everyone that the sun is a great reactor, but building a new one could cost the Earth! Whilst our existing, seems a little too unreliable for The Grid (cloudy weather, 12 hours of darkness ect) and today’s panels seem condemned by physics to be little more, than 10% efficient (that's because they use only certain frequencies of light). My opinion is that even if solar could be made to work, it would be a quick way to die as yet another inventor for coming up with a revolutionary idea. Power companies don't like it, as the public wouldn't need them. But an inventor needs the support of the power companies -(or at least something else powerful) because if you don't you will end up dead. Dreamers & political activists don't have to worry about much, but everyone else (wishing to better the world) must first work with the sad realities of the world we live in -there's no two ways about it.

Satoriku See point 14, I know what you’re saying as Thorium doesn’t melt easily, but the Fluoride Thorium is just a different version, of the same amazing thing.

I don't think it necessarily qualifies in comparison to the common nuclear reactor, but, I'm a big fan of the RTG, the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator wiki

These typically use radioisotopes high in Alpha and Beta, not the scary X and Gamma, and so don't require much shielding at all.
Alpha particles can't even penetrate human skin. Beta is more energetic, but,can be effectively blocked with only a few layers of tinfoil.

For assured safety, and durability an insulated steel casing is more than enough.

It's a 'safe' nuclear reactor in the sense that very small versions have even been used to power artificial hearts INSIDE the human body due their extreme reliability and long life.

RTGs are more commonly facilitated in use with space probes like Cassini, Voyager, Pioneer and others that get too far away from the sun for solar panels to give any worthwhile usable return.

If people weren't so unreasonably fearful of anything associated with the term 'nuclear', or 'radioactive', we could effectively have clean, RTG powered cars, homes, and many other things that will run for 25 years or longer without ever the need for refueling/recharging.

Originally posted by Liberal1984
BobatHome Thanks for that Bob! That's an amazing reactor I new very little about -most importantly of all it's in production. Here's more here: www.nuclearfaq.ca...

woogleuk The best reactor will be one in a museum dedicated to a time when the human race was ran by idiots.

Aren’t you getting nuclear reactors confused with wind turbines? They’d surely fit far more easily into a display cabinet.
And why are reactors with Passive Safety, such a bad idea? –Especially if they’re run on Thorium?

PS: I agree with everyone that the sun is a great reactor, but building a new one could cost the Earth! Whilst our existing, seems a little too unreliable for The Grid (cloudy weather, 12 hours of darkness ect) and today’s panels seem condemned by physics to be little more, than 10% efficient (that's because they use only certain frequencies of light). My opinion is that even if solar could be made to work, it would be a quick way to die as yet another inventor for coming up with a revolutionary idea. Power companies don't like it, as the public wouldn't need them. But an inventor needs the support of the power companies -(or at least something else powerful) because if you don't you will end up dead. Dreamers & political activists don't have to worry about much, but everyone else (wishing to better the world) must first work with the sad realities of the world we live in -there's no two ways about it.

Satoriku See point 14, I know what you’re saying as Thorium doesn’t melt easily, but the Fluoride Thorium is just a different version, of the same amazing thing.

edit on 090705 by Liberal1984 because: (no reason given)

... thats embarrassing, sorry about missing that.

reply to post by Liberal1984


Thorium. The reaction is not self-sustaining, which is what causes meltdowns. This technology needs to be invested in and perfected, too bad it's other countries doing it not America.

I'm going to have to agree with the OP in saying that thorium is probably the way to go... Either that or Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion. There's even a guy right now working on developing a thorium powered car so who knows waht the future holds.....

I truly hope that the US government gets off it's dash and gets behind thorium in a big way like China and India are.

Originally posted by Liberal1984
Before an anti-nuclear lot scream “no reactors!” view what this spectrum of technology offers (in plain English and in order of: worst designs, first)…

While I do very much appreciate technology, no nuclear technology is safe until we have governments with integrity. Which, judging from our world today, is an endangered species.

If we leave the current power structure in place, it's quite possible we won't have a habitable world for much longer.

Thorium is orders of magnitude safer than normal uranium or plutonium based nuclear technology. Honestly thorium should be powering just about everything right now instead of fossil fuels. It's really that safe. You should do the research and find out for yourself how advantageous thorium could really be to humanity rather than just say no nuclear ever period. LIke all blanket statements that one makes you look silly.

Originally posted by roguetechie
Thorium is orders of magnitude safer than normal uranium or plutonium based nuclear technology. Honestly thorium should be powering just about everything right now instead of fossil fuels. It's really that safe. You should do the research and find out for yourself how advantageous thorium could really be to humanity rather than just say no nuclear ever period. LIke all blanket statements that one makes you look silly.

Thorium has a half life of 14 billion years. So, when used in massive quantities, if it escape into the environment wouldn't it be a million times more hazardous than what's being used today?

hot water reactor.

In a hot water reactor the water at full power never reaches boiling point.with the control rods in the reactor goes cold.
Instead of running radioactive boiling water through a heat exchanger to boil clean non radioactive water
a hot water reactor uses hot water just below boiling point to boil a refrigerant like butane or pentane hydrocarbon with a much lower boiling point than water. The heat from the hot water causes this secondary or 'binary' fluid to flash into vapor. The vapor created by heating the pentane is what spins the turbine powering the generator,
this system would be like the system used in a Geothermal Binary Cycle Power Plants your just replacing the Geothermal hot water with hot water from a reactor.
in a loss of water accident because the plant runs cooler the max temperatures will not get high enough to melt fuel rods
in a loss of cooling accident it will take couple weeks before the water would evaporate down enough to expose the fuel rods giving time to bring in water from a source outside

The ideal fission reactor is the LFTR. The ideal reactor of any kind though is some kind of fusion reactor. In any case, the problem with LFTR is it seemingly where the FBR was in about 1970. And the FBR isn't commercial yet. As far as I am concerned advanced light water reactors like the AP1000, ESBWR, EPR, Westinghouse SMR, Nuscale, are good enough for the moment until something better comes along.

These reactors are already magnitudes safer than currently operating reactors. If they are not safe enough then you must ask - "What is safe enough and how do you define it?".

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...
(when complete this plant will have a capacity of 4664 megawatts over four reactors. Each will only need to be refuelled every 2 years. They will run at full power over almost all of that time. That's a LOT of very reliable power. )

Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Design advances will keep coming along thus if we wait for the ideal nuclear reactor, nothing will get built. On the other hand, good enough is the enemy of better. We shouldn't settle for things that are good enough either. Build what is ready to deploy now and keep researching and developing more advanced designs - because we need electricity now.

Also Plutonium-239 is not the most toxic element. That is a myth. The LD50 of caffeine is lower than that of Plutonium-239. Not that I would want to consume too much of either.

Nuclear submarines in the UK are cooled by pressurized water. You might be thinking of some older Soviet nuclear submarines that were cooled by a lead-bismuth eutectic. Also, lead is far more corrosive than sodium. An issue with lead is it is extremely heavy. The main issue with fast reactors is they are very sensitive to changes in core geometry which can cause a Hypothetical Core Disruptive Accident (HCDA) and posiive void coefficients. Depending on the design, if the control rods are ran out to the stops and all pumps are stopped, the sodium could begin to boil, at which point the reaction becomes faster and the fuel melts. The melt compacts the core. And well, a HCDA occurs. PRISM was designed to eliminate this though...

PRISM is a specific design of FBR. An IFR is bascailly just a FBR with colocated fuel reprocessing and waste vitrification facility.

Intersting thread, but I think it would be more appropriate to divide reactors in a different way. Maybe burners versus breeders...

Thorium has a half life of 14 billion years. So, when used in massive quantities, if it escape into the environment wouldn't it be a million times more hazardous than what's being used today?

The longer the half life the less radioactive the isotope tends to be. With a half life that long it's not very radioactive. Also Thorium is found in nature and is a fairly common element.

Druscilla I don't think it necessarily qualifies in comparison to the common nuclear reactor, but, I'm a big fan of the RTG, the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.

The problem with this reactor is isn’t very efficient) (only several percent). However the efficiency could always be raised by using the waste heat to power a steam engine. These reactors do offer a way of ensuring there is always enough electricity to power a plants most critical safety systems.

jiggerjThorium has a half life of 14 billion years. So, when used in massive quantities, if it escape into the environment wouldn't it be a million times more hazardous than what's being used today?

But half-life is proportional to radioactivity, so although it will remain radioactive for longer (not that this really matters when normally we’re already talking thousands of years) it will emit far less radiation (something positive which obviously does matter). Furthermore Thorium dioxide (which is what hot Thorium will become when exposed to air) has a boiling point of 4400 Centigrade. This is an insane temperature, well above that which any reactor could operate (the highest melting element, carbon has a boiling point of 3552 centigrade) tungsten the second, only has 3442). Meanwhile thorium metal only boils at 4787.
Without either the ability to boil as an element (or vaporise as an oxide) the stuff will have a very short travelling range, and is unlikely to be emitted anyway.

A deep space reactor, that beams energy back to earth.

We are not yet capable of safely harnessing nuclear power *see Chernobyl and Fukushima. We are stupid enough to place these unstable facilities on the ocean, and are even more stupid to keep the waste, here on earth.

Until we are capable of safely harnessing nuclear power, and are able to prevent meltdowns, we should not attempt to build and operate these facilities on earth.

Who cares about space though? That place is a whole mess of radiation, what would it affect on earth if a station a million miles away blew up? Nothing.

I say we shoot our current nuclear waste, rods, and warheads into the sun, refuel her, and sit back

Of course, thats totally unrealistic these days, so, yeah, im gonna go all anti-nuclear on you. NO STATIONS!

Originally posted by 8fl0z

We are not yet capable of safely harnessing nuclear power *see Chernobyl and Fukushima. We are stupid enough to place these unstable facilities on the ocean, and are even more stupid to keep the waste, here on earth.

Here is your requested flame, perhaps you should read before posting your reply. If Chernobyl and Fukushima were thorium reactors there would not be any disasters with either of them. Thorium is not self sustaining, and therefore is almost impossible to have a melt down with.

It truly frightens me how anti science ATS has become. Especially with blatant statements to the effect that no nuclear is the only good nuclear.

First off not all nuclear is created equal and any idiot with half a brain who does a little research will see that comparing thorium to uranium based nuclear is comparing apples and oranges. Hell comparing different types of Uranium nuke power is apples and oranges, thorium is like comparing apples to chickens.

People need to get educated before they talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater by banning or stopping all nuclear energy production. Especially now with Obama's war on coal jumping the cost of power in some areas by 8x by 2015. Nuclear may be our only hope soon to keep the lights on in the US and elsewhere.

Now don't get me wrong I deeply hope we'll see safer cleaner less dangerous thorium take the lead in the next ten years but if it's a choice between seeing civilization go dark or safer next gen Uranium nuclear I'll take the nuclear every time.

It's all well and good to talk about going back to simpler times but I guarantee you you'd tire very quickly of a life where electrical power was only available intermittently at great cost if at all. It would literally mean taking humanity back to the early industrial age as our ability to design and build with modern materials slowly slipped away. And this doesn't even cover the reduced carrying capacity of the earth when we have to go back to all natural farming methods. Do you really want to see a world where famines once again kill entire populations? Because that's what a world without technology looks like.