from the safe-like-ms-windows-and-real-estate-doing-fission-together dept.
Wyoming has selected billionaire Bill Gates's company TerraPower LLC and Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway's owned power company PacifiCorp to build the nation's first Natrium reactor. As reported by Reuters:
TerraPower, founded by Gates about 15 years ago, and power company PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), said the exact site of the Natrium reactor demonstration plant is expected to be announced by the end of the year. Small advanced reactors, which run on different fuels than traditional reactors, are regarded by some as a critical carbon-free technology than can supplement intermittent power sources like wind and solar as states strive to cut emissions that cause climate change.
"This is our fastest and clearest course to becoming carbon negative," Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon said. "Nuclear power is clearly a part of my all-of-the-above strategy for energy" in Wyoming, the country's top coal-producing state.
The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system's power output to 500 MW during peak power demand. TerraPower said last year that the plants would cost about $1 billion.
[...] Chris Levesque, TerraPower's president and CEO, said the demonstration plant would take about seven years to build.
"We need this kind of clean energy on the grid in the 2030s," he told reporters.
Also seen over at ZeroHedge.
Related Stories
Bill Gates' nuclear power company selects a site for its first reactor
On Tuesday, TerraPower, the US-based nuclear power company backed by Bill Gates, announced it has chosen a site for what would be its first reactor. Kemmerer, Wyoming, population roughly 2,500, has been the site of the coal-fired Naughton Power Plant, which is being closed. The TerraPower project will see it replaced by a 345 megawatt reactor that would pioneer a number of technologies that haven't been commercially deployed before.
These include a reactor design that needs minimal refueling, cooling by liquid sodium, and a molten-salt heat-storage system that will provide the plant with the flexibility needed to better integrate with renewable energy.
While TerraPower is the name clearly attached to the project, plenty of other parties are involved, as well. The company is perhaps best known for being backed by Bill Gates, now chairman of the company board, who has promoted nuclear power as a partial solution for the climate crisis. The company has been selected by the US Department of Energy to build a demonstration reactor, a designation that guarantees at least $180 million toward construction and could see it receive billions of dollars over the next several years.
Also at Ars Technica.
Previously: Bill Gates & Warren Buffet to Build Nation's First Natrium Reactor in Wyoming
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday June 03 2021, @07:24PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 03 2021, @07:33PM (3 children)
So, $2.90/W - at $0.08/kWh that's a ROI within 36,232 hours, or 4.1 years. Smart money for an investment expected to run 40 to 60 years before refueling [wikipedia.org].
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @10:04PM (1 child)
ROI starts when it starts operating, at least 7 years from now.
Where did you get $0.08/kWh? Wholesale electricity is running at less than half that. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46396 [eia.gov]
So, best case, a billion dollars today earns you $86 million per year starting 7 years from now. Which is equivalent to your billion earning 5.5% starting today.
That is best case. It assumes no cost overruns or delays getting an operating license. Nuclear power has historically been plagued by cost overruns and license delays. It also assumes that in the meantime solar/battery technology doesn't become cheaper than dirt, lowering electricity prices.
There may be money to be made here eventually, a lot of money even, but not anytime soon. And not from this reactor. The money is in learning how to build them faster and cheaper.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 04 2021, @11:13AM
So, the longer time to start of the initial prototype is cost of development, and of course there is massive uncertainty - not so much in the 70 year old aspects of the tech but in the regulatory and "carbon negative incentive" climate.
Commercial electric prices in Wyoming (location of the project) run 8 to 9 cents per kWh - this is ignoring the cost of transmission / maintenance, but one aspect of "microgenerators" is that they are, or should be, located much closer to consumers than traditional big plants.
Out the other end, if the US nuclear regulatory climate of the 2030s in any way resembles the French breeder reactor building phase of the 1960s and 70s, this looks like a solid investment. Solar and wind aren't really cleaner, and no matter what the press flak says: having a lot of plutonium on hand, even if it is buried underground in domestic power generators, is still an implied threat on the world's balance of power stage.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @10:47PM
The calculation is obviously much more complicated than that.
Time to build, opportunity costs of capital, risk, etc.
Rule of thumb is that a project is worse than another if (all other things being equal) it has a higher: time to start earning, time to recoup, risk, novelty, or government oversight or risk of regulation changes.
That does not mean that this project is doomed to fail or be non-profitable.
Also, this single implementation is almost certain a test bed for a wider strategy.
So on the profit side you would have to factor in the next dozen reactors they intend to build at a much cheaper cost since the test case has been completed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday June 03 2021, @07:39PM (11 children)
It appears to be a molten salt reactor using a mix of weapons-grade plutonium and natural/reprocessed/depleted uranium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-cooled_fast_reactor [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel [wikipedia.org]
Where's thorium, is it dead?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @07:55PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:03PM
Some of the Wiki-flak says it's an "integrated breeder reactor... that could eventually eliminate the need to enrich Uranium... This allows the benefits of a closed fuel cycle without the expense and proliferation-risk of enrichment and reprocessing plants typically required to get them."
Sounds to me like you've got to have Gates/Buffet level political connections to play with these toys. Down at the University of Florida they were having plenty of trouble getting permission to play with Cobalt60 for the purposes of significantly improving difficult radiotherapy cases like lung cancer.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:09PM
See previous comment about political connections. Thorium, as I understand it, would require significant infrastructure development and would basically play independently of the current Uranium / Plutonium systems. Reading through the TerraPower material, they're significantly involved with utilization of existing "nuclear wastes," and processing their own wastes to safer levels. So, instead of going it alone with what might be a "better" system in the long run, they're integrating with the existing infrastructure and trying to help the legacy players with their expensive problems.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:20PM (6 children)
Where's thorium, is it dead?
You can't make thorium go boom, so the US military has no interest in it. Guess who spends the most $$$ on atomic energy research? The folks who like the biggest boom for the buck.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @09:05PM (4 children)
The simplest answer is that thorium is a completely new fuel cycle. Because of that it faces hurdles, not some conspiracy. It's almost impossible as it is to get new nuclear reactors approved that simply use the old traditional fuels, much less something totally new.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday June 04 2021, @08:55AM (2 children)
just a warning, im writting this from memory and it's late. Some of this might be wrong or outdated. Any one who knows better plese chim in wiht corrections/clarifications.
There are several comercial power reactors in India and China that already use Thorium fuel, but they are just the well known Light Water Thermal Reactors design, only difference between them and the ones at Chernobyl and Fukushima is the fuel that is being used.
From the stand point of how a reactor works it really doesn't matter what fuel you use. Only that the fuel is rich in elements that will undergo fission when hit with neutrons at the right energy range. The Carbon moderated Light Water Reactors currently in use in the USA and most other places was developed by the US Navy because that design worked best for their needs, in subs and ships with pretty much the whole ocean to dump the waste heat into and a safe place for a meltdown if anything happened to the ship. Sea water at over a thousand PSI is not going to have any problems cooling a still fissioning mass of Uranium if the sub or ship sinks to the ocean floor.
The main reasons the LWTR design is so prevalent isn't because it really good, or that it can produce Plutonium for weapons like some have claimed, even an MSR can do that if you use a Uranium fuel cycle. No, the LWTR is in use today almost solely because the US Navy had already put all the money and time into developing it for Naval vessels. The commercial power plants just copied the existing designs, scaled them up to meet their larger power generating needs and ran with it. One of the reasons why there were so many problems over the years with those Gen 1 and 2 reactors is that pretty much all that was done to the Navy design was to scale it up, no one thought about redoing all the math to account for things like neutron embrittlement of the metals used in the reactor vessel and pipes. So we ended up with cracked pipes and coolant leaks.
Another factor to the slow development of alternative reactor designs in the USA is that the early regulations and laws covering how the reactors be built and operate in the US pretty much locked out other designs like MSRs, the CANDU (which can also use unrefined Uranium), and other non Light water or solid fuel design concepts. Additionally the MSR design hit a road block relating to the Floride metal salts used being very corrosive in their liquid form. Many of those alloys that can survive long term use didn't exist or weren't suitable due to cost or weakness in the 1950's
This "Natrium" concept, based on what I've read in the past, isn't a MSR. It still uses a solid fuel like conventional LWTR but instead of light water it uses molten Sodium for a working fluid/coolant. The big advantage of using Sodium or Floride salts in an MSR, is the working fluid is under effectively zero pressure, just ambient pressure plus a some PSI to move the working fluid around. Which means that it won't instantly boil away into super heated steam if the containment system fails and it loses pressure, which is what happens when a conventional LWTR fails. Think "pressure cooker". The use of Sodium as a coolant does not prevent the core from melting down into a self sustaining fisioning mass of Uranium like a true molten salt reactor would, the Sodium coolant just makes it less likely.
Only thing that is really "new" in nuclear power, at least in that it is now becoming better known in teh USA and getting investments is the Molten Salt Reactor design that was actually developed in the 1950's by the US Air Force for a nuclear powered bomber concept. The thing about a MSR is that it also works with any fissionable fuel and there have been many developed that use U/Pu and Thorium fuel cycle.
Oh, and a side note: The Thorium fuel cycle was considered during the early stages of the Manhattan Project, it was rejected partially because the U-232 and U-233 created was considered unsuitable for building a bomb at the time when compared to U-235 and Pu-239.
Good night.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @01:11PM
There is a major, major error in your post:
"The Carbon moderated Light Water Reactors currently in use in the USA and most other places was developed by the US Navy..."
Wrong moderator, and no, Western reactors do no use the same design as Chernobyl. Chernobyl was graphite (what you call carbon) moderated. Western reactors since nearly forever are basically all light water moderated. Water is the moderator AND the coolant. CANDU reactors use heavy water instead, but there never were a lot of those built, and they are pretty much extinct at this point.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:51AM
The vast majority of nuclear power reactors in the USA are either BWRs (Boiling Water Reactors) or PWRs (Pressurised Water Reactors) which use light water as the primary coolant and the moderator. They are not carbon moderated. The RBMK design in the Soviet Union, of Chernobyl fame, was carbon moderated and light water cooled.
Bill Gates' and Warren Buffet's Natrium reactor is effectively a fairly standard Fast Reactor by the looks of it. They run on plutonium (ie nuclear waste) and don't require a moderator because they run on fast neutrons. Because of the energy density of the core they need a liquid metal coolant. Water or gas (e.g. CO2) don't have the heat capacity for it. In fact, they say that sodium (natrium) is the coolant but in previous fast reactors it was often a sodium/potassium eutectic. We even had two here in the UK at the Dounreay [wikipedia.org] site.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:14AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:16AM
Yes, yes you can. US military has no interest in it because it already has more than enough of better so why bother? If you want thorium, move to India. They have thorium reserves but no uranium and so their reactors are probably going to be thorium based in the future, unless magic happens on the fusion reactors or battery storage. Anyway, here's something about bomb production from Thorium,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#Possible_disadvantages [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @11:39PM
Where is thorium?
Alive and well
http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/press-release/china-invests-big-in-clean-and-cheap-energy-from-thorium [thoriumenergyworld.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:34PM (11 children)
We can only hope it's well above maximum tsunami level!
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:57PM (2 children)
If the tsunami is great enough to reach Wyoming then you have other more pressing problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @03:28PM (1 child)
Average Wyoming elevation is 6700 feet. The lowest point is 3100 feet near the South Dakota border. So, yes, if a tsunami was large enough to reach Wyoming, and then reach the location of the reactor, it would be an EPIC sized tsunami. And we'd have many more larger problems to deal with.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 05 2021, @02:22AM
Sounds high enough to be above sea level after Antarctica melts.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @10:43PM (1 child)
No, it just sits on a giant caldera.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 04 2021, @11:06AM
If the giant caldera erupts, its effects will dwarf that of this reactor melting down.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday June 04 2021, @07:38AM (5 children)
And that's it's in a containment building strong enough to withstand an aircraft impact.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday June 04 2021, @09:10AM (4 children)
wouldn't be a problem, by using Sodium as a coolant the core isn't under nearly as much pressure as using water.
Water boils at 100 degrees C at sea level so water has to be kept under a fair bit of pressure to keep it form turning into steam, I think it was around 70SPI in a normal reactor. Breach that coolant system and all the coolant becomes steam in an instant. Like taking the radiator cap off when the engine is over heating.
Sodium on the other melts at about 97 C but doesn't boil until it gets to around 880 degrees C, well above the operating temperature of a nuclear reactor, so the core vessel would be under no significant pressure. And if a leak did happen the Sodium would just cool, solidify and seal the leak.
I think this Natrium design also uses the Sodium as a moderator (its late and I'm very tired, might be wrong about this), which slows high energy neutrons down enough to get captured by the fuel and cause a fission event. Lose the Sodium coolant and the neutrons stop getting captured, shutting the reactor down passively.
however a plan crashing into it would still be really messy.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @01:32PM (1 child)
There are 2 types of water moderated reactor: Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) and Boiling Water Reactor (BWR). Both are old designs. Most nuclear reactors are PWR. In a PWR, water is not allowed to boil on the reactor side. The heat from the reactor water is transferred via a heat exchanger (in other words it is not in direct contact) to an isolated secondary system which has water that is allowed to boil and turns a turbine to generate electricity. In a BWR, the water is allowed to boil and turn a turbine directly to generate electricity; there is no heat exchanger and no isolated secondary system. BWRs are the second most common type of reactor and many new plants have been built as BWRs (renewed interest, mostly overseas). Note that BWRs still operate under pressure, but far less than a PWR.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @10:42PM
Is there any inherent advantage to the boiling water type, other than not needing to build two isolated systems? I would think the turbines would hold up better if they are isolated from the reactor water, so I wonder why the boiling type have renewed interest.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday June 04 2021, @03:32PM
If it ever happens, I'll bring pretzels, margarita mix, tequila, and limes. Can't let that salt go to waste.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:31AM
The problem is that all that stuff in the core of the reactor, including the sodium coolant, is highly radioactive and so you really don't want it exposed to the environment, explosions or not. Sodium is highly chemically reactive, particularly with water, so it needs to be kept properly isolated from the outside world. Secondly, it absorbs a neutron in the core and becomes extremely radioactive. It's a great coolant because of its high specific heat capacity and because it doesn't have to be kept under pressure, as you said, but you really don't want it to be anywhere but behind a very thick and strong biological shield. The same goes for the nuclear fuel. It's really great that they are thinking of using fast reactors again to use up the plutonium. But it really has to be handled carefully.
When many nuclear power stations were built, the idea of crazy terrorists flying passenger aircraft deliberately into buildings wasn't considered. We need to learn from experience. I dare say the biological shields of most nuclear reactors would be strong enough to remain intact, but you also need to consider the various pipes and cables going in and out etc.
By the way, the sodium isn't used as a moderator in a fast reactor. Fast reactors run on fast neutrons, so no moderation is required.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Touché) by HammeredGlass on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:34PM (15 children)
And we're golden.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:53PM (14 children)
Insightful observation. What well-networked billionaire do you propose could take his place?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @08:57PM (9 children)
Soros kekekekekeke
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @10:53PM (8 children)
Soros has zero interest in advancing science, or improving the human condition. Gates is a dirtball, and he's still a hundred times better man than Soros is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:49AM (4 children)
While Soros has zero interest in advancing anything, Gates has everything in his power to worsen the human condition (and continues to doe so). What is not evil about him?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @01:35PM (3 children)
So does Soros. His funding is directly responsible, among other things, for the elections in America of district attorneys who refuse to prosecute crime which IS THEIR JOB. In America as a direct result we are enjoying a crime wave since the elections are nobody is being put in jail.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday June 04 2021, @03:48PM (2 children)
I don't know what you're talking about, but prosecutors have been refusing to do their jobs for decades without Soros' intervention. Any case they don't think they can win, they don't take, because the voting population incentivizes win rates over taking every case. Sexual assault in particular often goes unprosecuted, even in cases where they probably could win, because prosecutors are scared of losing.
Of course, if you want to make some case about sanctuary cities refusing to enforce federal immigration laws or cooperate with federal agencies, I've got only two words for you: states' rights.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @05:44PM (1 child)
The Soros-funded DA in my state won't take on cases he could EASILY win. He doesn't believe in prosecuting crimes, even violent ones. He's "reimagining" criminal justice.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday June 04 2021, @06:07PM
What is the alternative though? Why should it matter whether the case is easy to win or not? If your argument is that prosecutors should prosecute every crime they can, then it is just as valid to refuse to prosecute certain crimes for ideological reasons as it is to refuse to prosecute certain crimes for electoral reasons. In fact, if the prosecutor ran on a platform of not prosecuting certain crimes for ideological reasons, there is literally no philosophical difference.
The only difference is what crimes aren't being prosecuted. The question I have for you is, why do you care so much about punishing homeless people for getting into fistfights, but you don't seem to care at all about punishing rapists?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 04 2021, @03:56PM (2 children)
The reason you lot hate him is specifically because of his activities in those areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:42PM (1 child)
Soros, as part of the billionaire class, can buy political influence, shape the narrative, and sway politics more than millions of individual voters. I hate the guy because he thwarts democracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:32AM
A lot of butt hurt billionaires hate Soros because he wants to educate the electorate and encourage dialogue. But there is a large clique of billionaires that view this as very dangerous and they want to keep the unwashed masses stupid for easier manipulation in the future. The entire discussion here is proof that idiots are getting brainwashed by the anti-Soros fascists.
Where are but in America would people willingly vote to lower taxes on the richest while they themselves are fucking poor, living on wages that can be lower than for same labor in Mexico or some 'African shithole country'? The only answer is brainwashing.
As for Soros, the government in power in Hungary hates him because they are corrupted by power. So they shut down a liberal university funded by Soros and in its place open a Chinese one while letting Hungarians pay for it!
It's a telltale of fascism and anti-democracy when you hear the lies against Soros. But yeah, idiots are easily swayed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Political_involvement [wikipedia.org]
If one is not a rabid brainwashed idiot, one can read such a page and come to a conclusion that Soros is not some weirdo but a normal guy with honest and righteous views. On the other hand, multilateralism that Soros preaches, are a real pain in the ass for the scammers and manipulators and other criminals. And you know, one needs an enemy and a scapegoat to retain power, but that Soros or Gates or whoever else that does try to do something positive with their wealth.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @09:14PM
Hooray for our all powerful billionaire class. Now back to mindless serfdom and Wellness(tm) training to
cope withtreat the mysterious depression.(Score: 1) by HammeredGlass on Thursday June 03 2021, @09:26PM
None.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @10:37PM
Trump?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 04 2021, @01:25AM
I want to hear about how this will help power Bill Gates' adrenochrome harvesting operation.
The article doesn't mention how Hilary Clinton's pizza shop is involved, but you can bet it is somehow.
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Captival on Thursday June 03 2021, @09:40PM (7 children)
You'd think actual released emails from Fauci A) lying to protect China B) lying about the cure C) lying about being involved with the lab in China would be very important front page news that everyone would be interested in. But when you have a bunch of Communists deciding what is news and what isn't, it suddenly isn't very important.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @09:51PM (1 child)
Racism! Mod this racist spam! Mods! Mods!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @10:40PM
Is there a mod for "Pitifully Pathetic"?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 03 2021, @11:45PM (3 children)
Trump lost. Get over it, loser.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @12:54AM (2 children)
NO! Hilary lost. Get over THAT!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @01:27AM
Kamala is about as bad as Hillary was, and she is close to taking power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @02:31AM
Hillary won, Trump lost his mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @01:29AM
Surprised they didn't bleach it [babylonbee.com] earlier.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday June 03 2021, @11:30PM (5 children)
$1bn maybe gets you VVER, and only if the Russians have one left over on the production line because some third world country dropped out, and they want to get into a new market. The latest Wiki number of the cost of Olkiluoto 3 is around $12bn for "safe" Western European technology. The British economy will get a decent blow from Hinkley Point C, which (for two reactors) stands at around $22bn now.
The last German attempt to build a sodium cooled reactor was cancelled, after about $8bn in today's money were sunk. Now these jokers come along and want to build one, with technology never tried at scale, for one lousy billion? If your "scam" alarm doesn't go off, I don't know. The offer is probably "cost-plus", and can't be held up once started; think of the jobs...
What's extra weird is that Warren Buffett is behind it, that guy stated he doesn't invest in technology, because he doesn't understand it. (And if he would, it would already have to be long-term profitable).
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 04 2021, @03:14AM
Now I'm wondering if Buffet sees it as a way to suck free money out of Bill Gates.
And I'm wondering where they plan to locate this miracle wonder of budget efficiency. Logically, the closer to Denver the better. (Also further from unstable geological features and fragile landscapes. But I've never seen any of these "clean energy" types give two shits about destroying an ecology that isn't "scenic" by their lights.)
And "demonstration project" -- does that mean if it fails, taxpayers get stuck with yet another Superfund cleanup?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:43AM (1 child)
Yes, we didn't just read the official report - we were part of the pipeline in its production.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Sunday June 06 2021, @11:14AM
That's why I put the "safe" in quotes. "They" keep telling us that this EPR tech is the most safe on the planet, but after seeing the arte documentary, I had some suspicions. Actually I'm more worried about the permanent waste storage facility nearby, where apparently water was already leaking in before it was commissioned, while it should be safe for a few thousand years.
For the two other replies, Dounreay was (and still is) a big mess and its demonstration result mostly was that the UK is unable to sustainably operate breeders. (Kalkar was laid out to only 300MWe by the way, too). Monju can neither be called a success story. Only the Russians run them more or less sustainably. Probably not at cost, I assume they keep the tech mostly to hedge against fuel shortage and for weapons production once all the RBMK are down.
An ordinary NPP is mostly a big water kettle with some magic rods put in that heat it up, and that is not really competitive even without factoring in permanent waste storage. Managing a big molten metal kettle with a metal that turns radioactive, burns like hell, blows up when it touches water (but has to exchange its heat to water), and may never ever cool down is somewhat more difficult, which will reflect in the price. On the SpaceX comparison, they have Elon, who with his multi-Bond-supervillain powers, built up the premier payment service just to cash out starting capital for his real plans. All the other private space contenders are hardly past Germany '44. Unless the people involved have already shown their ability to do the impossible and bring their own money, the bet is firmly on "no go".
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:55AM
We built and operated two sodium reactors [wikipedia.org] in the UK, the last being shut down in 1994. The second one achieved its design output of 250MW electrical. That's quite small for a nuclear power station (they're usually about four times that) but this was only a prototype, so it did quite well.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @11:38AM
I know, like when SpaceX comes along and starts charging cheaper seats than costs of a rocket, like if they planned on reusing it, those fucking scammers. We all know that space is unreachable without trillion budgets and it always loses money.
When someone never did something before, it's because it's impossible!! DUH!!!
(Score: 1) by js290 on Friday June 04 2021, @03:54AM (4 children)
The only clean energy is to use less...
(Score: 1) by Coligny on Friday June 04 2021, @06:22AM
Shusssshhh you goddamnered ecocomminazy...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 04 2021, @11:09AM (2 children)
If this is what you believe, then by posting on this board you have instantly lost credibility.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by js290 on Friday June 04 2021, @05:34PM (1 child)
technological salvation is a faith based proposition...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday June 05 2021, @08:21PM
Yes, sure. Contrary to all historical, empirical evidence that technology underpins human progress in every sector. But let's handwave all that away and gloss it into "faith based proposition," eh?
If a person wants to adopt a hairshirt approach to life, that's great. But such a person has no business going onto an Internet board to wag his finger at those who don't.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:45PM
well we can be sure they will never "open-source"it which in this case might actually be a good thing *smirk*
then again, now you gotta kow-tow to some 1%er every time the red light turns on and flashes *error* or *emergency*.
maybe it's "cheaper" to just continue to find a way to store all that excess and unlimited energy falling from the sky everyday for the foreseeable future.
methinks this tech can be "compiled" by pretty much every country on its own(!) and doesn't require them to be excessively polite to the country (and people) providing the tech and stuff ...?