Molten Salt Nuclear Meltdown-Proof Reactors- WTH Is Taking T

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change. Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most everyone can embrace."

And this technology can "load follow" which will avoid failures in the renewable generation as recently occurred in Texas.

That Transatomic they mention has since gone bust. After admitting they made several errors in estimating nuclear waste reuse, seems they lost financial backing.


https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 3:22 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 3:08 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International
Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Obama Administration and even
over 70% of climate scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear
power if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change. Because
of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps MSR technology is a
nuclear technology that most everyone can embrace."

And this technology can "load follow" which will avoid failures in the
renewable generation as recently occurred in Texas.

That Transatomic they mention has since gone bust. After admitting
they made several errors in estimating nuclear waste reuse, seems they
lost financial backing.


https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/


only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required to make it
work, natural gas is cheap, and they don't have any interest in spending
the money to do it at this time. spending money is the opposite of
getting money.

and the utility company execs will gladly burn up every bit of coal,
oil, and natural gas there is, then shrug, say "welp", close up shop and
either die with everyone else if they're unlucky or escape to their New
Zealand end-of-world bunker next to Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel if
they're more fortunate.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 3:08 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change. Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most everyone can embrace."

And this technology can "load follow" which will avoid failures in the renewable generation as recently occurred in Texas.

That Transatomic they mention has since gone bust. After admitting they made several errors in estimating nuclear waste reuse, seems they lost financial backing.


https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/

only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required to make it
work, natural gas is cheap, and they don't have any interest in spending
the money to do it at this time. spending money is the opposite of
getting money.

 

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 3:23:00 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 3:08 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change. Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most everyone can embrace."

And this technology can "load follow" which will avoid failures in the renewable generation as recently occurred in Texas.

That Transatomic they mention has since gone bust. After admitting they made several errors in estimating nuclear waste reuse, seems they lost financial backing.


https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/


only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required to make it
work, natural gas is cheap, and they don't have any interest in spending
the money to do it at this time. spending money is the opposite of
getting money.

Not true. There is such a thing as independent energy providers who can put power onto the grid. This is how the big solar and windpower producers are doing it right now, they are not owned by the utilities.

 

[whit3rd]

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 12:23:00 PM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:

only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required

But, many utility companies are regulated monopolies, cannot ever expand into
new distribution, and cannot consolidate. So the local utility can
NOT afford a world-class engineering effort (and might not be able to
profit from it if they did). The economic scale of utilities prevents
investment in this matter. One needs nation-scale or international
consortium to really participate.

 

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:20:48 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.


is it like that time Boeing tried to build a "Cyber Wall" lol

"The cyber-reactor looks great in the sim, guys. By sim I mean I built
it in Minecraft"

The real lesson to be learned there is keep defense contractors out of it! They're a bunch of useless non-performing charlatans.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.

"The U.S. Department of Energy already invested more than $28 million in
cost-shared funds"

lol wow $28 million. You can hardly get anyone to get off their ass for
$28 million. The catering/lodging budget for some Hollywood pictures is
probably $28 million.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.

is it like that time Boeing tried to build a "Cyber Wall" lol

"The cyber-reactor looks great in the sim, guys. By sim I mean I built
it in Minecraft"

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 4:07 PM, whit3rd wrote:
On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 12:23:00 PM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:

only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required

But, many utility companies are regulated monopolies, cannot ever
expand into
new distribution, and cannot consolidate.   So the local utility can
NOT afford a world-class engineering effort (and might not be able to
profit from it if they did).   The economic scale of utilities prevents
investment in this matter.   One needs nation-scale or international
consortium to really participate.


The problem with doing product-research-on-a-budget in the public sector
I think is you tend to be constrained to hiring engineers who'll work
for an academic's salary.

They need to market it to Americans that the motel salt

That wasn't a typo by the way, I have the advertising pitch for a
funding drive right here.

"The Model Salt Reactor - The Infinite Energy/Mexican and/or Communist
Destroying Reactor Solution for 21st Century America. Sure, you could
wish we spent your money on some other project - that's just about what
a fucking loser like you would want."

 

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 4:07:34 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 12:23:00 PM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:

only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required

But, many utility companies are regulated monopolies, cannot ever expand into
new distribution, and cannot consolidate. So the local utility can
NOT afford a world-class engineering effort (and might not be able to
profit from it if they did). The economic scale of utilities prevents
investment in this matter. One needs nation-scale or international
consortium to really participate.

The utilities can invest in anything they like as long as it doesn't involve a rate hike or make their finances so precarious that a rate hike can be predicted to result from it. It wouldn't make sense for a utility to develop a new power generation technology, they purchase finished products.

 

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 4:52:34 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 3:32 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 3:23:00 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 8/16/19 3:08 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change. Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most everyone can embrace."

And this technology can "load follow" which will avoid failures in the renewable generation as recently occurred in Texas.

That Transatomic they mention has since gone bust. After admitting they made several errors in estimating nuclear waste reuse, seems they lost financial backing.


https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/


only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required to make it
work, natural gas is cheap, and they don't have any interest in spending
the money to do it at this time. spending money is the opposite of
getting money.

Not true. There is such a thing as independent energy providers who can put power onto the grid. This is how the big solar and windpower producers are doing it right now, they are not owned by the utilities.


Okay, fair enough, but finally the R&D money can come from either two
sources public, or private.

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 4:07 PM, whit3rd wrote:

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 12:23:00 PM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:

only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required

But, many utility companies are regulated monopolies, cannot ever expand into
new distribution, and cannot consolidate. So the local utility can
NOT afford a world-class engineering effort (and might not be able to
profit from it if they did). The economic scale of utilities prevents
investment in this matter. One needs nation-scale or international
consortium to really participate.

The problem with doing product-research-on-a-budget in the public sector
I think is you tend to be constrained to hiring engineers who'll work
for an academic's salary.

They need to market it to Americans that the motel salt reactor will
incinerate all the Mexicans and prevent the communists from turning
everyone gay. then you'll have your moon-shot funding.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 4:52 PM, bitrex wrote:

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

and also hurts the petroleum/fossil fuel industry who, along with the
Evangelicals/Israel and the gun lobby tell Republican lawmakers
everything they need to know about any topic and dictate their decisions
for them.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 3:32 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 3:23:00 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 8/16/19 3:08 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations, the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change. Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most everyone can embrace."

And this technology can "load follow" which will avoid failures in the renewable generation as recently occurred in Texas.

That Transatomic they mention has since gone bust. After admitting they made several errors in estimating nuclear waste reuse, seems they lost financial backing.


https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/


only the utility companies really have both the financial means and
incentive to invest in the (really expensive) R&D required to make it
work, natural gas is cheap, and they don't have any interest in spending
the money to do it at this time. spending money is the opposite of
getting money.

Not true. There is such a thing as independent energy providers who can put power onto the grid. This is how the big solar and windpower producers are doing it right now, they are not owned by the utilities.

Okay, fair enough, but finally the R&D money can come from either two
sources public, or private.

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

 

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:24:16 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.


"The U.S. Department of Energy already invested more than $28 million in
cost-shared funds"

lol wow $28 million. You can hardly get anyone to get off their ass for
$28 million. The catering/lodging budget for some Hollywood pictures is
probably $28 million.

Looks like TerraPower is just doing this as an aside. Their real money is developing Traveling Wave Reactors for China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

 

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:34:35 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 8/16/19 5:28 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:20:48 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.


is it like that time Boeing tried to build a "Cyber Wall" lol

"The cyber-reactor looks great in the sim, guys. By sim I mean I built
it in Minecraft"

The real lesson to be learned there is keep defense contractors out of it! They're a bunch of useless non-performing charlatans.


it's a good hustle, making the world's most advanced fighter a real
bargain at 100 million per because the government sold all the previous
most advanced fighters to anyone with the cash and now those guys know
how to do it too so you gotta be better than them with a better advanced
fighter

I thought you were talking about that fiasco virtual border wall contract from the early 2000s. Boeing just slapped together every sensor technology known to man together with an intractable assortment of software they never could get to work. IIRC they got around $30B into it before Congress pulled the plug because it was useless.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 5:28 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:20:48 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.


is it like that time Boeing tried to build a "Cyber Wall" lol

"The cyber-reactor looks great in the sim, guys. By sim I mean I built
it in Minecraft"

The real lesson to be learned there is keep defense contractors out of it! They're a bunch of useless non-performing charlatans.

it's a good hustle, making the world's most advanced fighter a real
bargain at 100 million per because the government sold all the previous
most advanced fighters to anyone with the cash and now those guys know
how to do it too so you gotta be better than them with a better advanced
fighter

 

[bitrex]

On 8/16/19 5:42 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:34:35 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 8/16/19 5:28 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:20:48 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 8/16/19 5:10 PM, bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

In the US at least the taxpayer on average tends to take a dim view of
large sums of taxpayer money being spent on nuclear industry R&D, the
left because the left doesn't like what could be construed as "corporate
welfare" and it's a scary nuclear project

and the right because while in the US at least the right seems to have
no problem with socialism for corporations, or nuclear power so long as
it's in someone else's back yard, it can be construed as an
environmental/greenie project, and doing projects like that will delay
the Rapture/Armageddon and is against Jesus' wishes and not using coal
will make everyone a gay queer space communist.

So if there's going to be private funding they're probably gonna want to
see some ROI on it unless they're just a billionaire philanthropist.
and, again, natural gas is cheap you can make some $$$ as an
"independent" I suppose but what kind of ROI are we talking here. Wind
and solar are relatively low cost and mature tech by comparison to a
novel reactor design with many technological hurdles likely still
unknown unknowns.

DOE has had their hand in this for a while. They're not spending much and the work is taking forever.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/southern-company-and-terrapower-prep-testing-molten-salt-reactor
They're funding others too, and the money is equally scanty.


is it like that time Boeing tried to build a "Cyber Wall" lol

"The cyber-reactor looks great in the sim, guys. By sim I mean I built
it in Minecraft"

The real lesson to be learned there is keep defense contractors out of it! They're a bunch of useless non-performing charlatans.


it's a good hustle, making the world's most advanced fighter a real
bargain at 100 million per because the government sold all the previous
most advanced fighters to anyone with the cash and now those guys know
how to do it too so you gotta be better than them with a better advanced
fighter

I thought you were talking about that fiasco virtual border wall contract from the early 2000s. Boeing just slapped together every sensor technology known to man together with an intractable assortment of software they never could get to work. IIRC they got around $30B into it before Congress pulled the plug because it was useless.

Well their planes haven't been so hot lately, either.

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 1:52:10 AM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
International Energy Agency, the United Nations,
the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate
scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power
if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change.
Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps
MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most
everyone can embrace."

What about R&D funded in the EU? Maybe France? China?

What about it? France is in love with their reactor design which I believe they use in nearly all of their current reactors. They don't do the US thing where they let any Tom, Dick and Harry design nukes.

But I recently heard about a new EPR reactor which is mostly French. Seems it is a bit more expensive than expected the first construction coming in more than twice the expected amount and taking four times longer much of which had to do with safety issues. The second such reactor is currently forecast to cost more than three times the initial figure (now nearly 11 Billion Euro) and 13 years instead of 2.5 years.

Clearly France knows how to build nuclear reactors.

China seems to be heading down a MSR path with consideration of thorium fuel. We'll see how far they get and what they end up with.

At this point I'm wondering if any nuclear fuel or reactor design will be economically practical. The construction costs of these facilities seem to be out of control and strain the ability to make even competitively priced electricity much less "too cheap to meter".

Why should we focus on the single most expensive electricity source? What's wrong with finding ways to make renewable energy cheaper and provide power around the clock?

The part I find particularly amusing is how pretty much the same people who criticize the various renewable choices based on various calculations of how they can't possibly work seem to refute the math of why we need renewables in place of fossil fuel energy. The same people who proclaim the market should dictate energy decisions when examining renewable subsidies don't complain at all about the high cost of nuclear energy and keep quiet when others mention the subsidies for the oil companies.

I'd be happy with a level playing field... if it were ever level.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Winfield Hill]

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
International Energy Agency, the United Nations,
the Obama Administration and even over 70% of climate
scientists agree that we must ramp up nuclear power
if we are going succeed in dealing with climate change.
Because of its exceptional safety and low cost, perhaps
MSR technology is a nuclear technology that most
everyone can embrace."

What about R&D funded in the EU? Maybe France? China?


--
Thanks,
- Win