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- Hacker News
- That's just what we needed! Nuclear autotune.by coldtea
- We need progress, not a decade per step.
That distinction matters because nuclear.
Let that sink in for a moment.
by cadamsdotcom - Can you please roll back the snark and flamebait in your comments? It has been upticking again for quite a while, to the point where notice I'm bracing myself when I see your username in threads.
Since you've adjusted this in the past, I'm sure you can do so again, and we'd appreciate it. We like that you're here, but need you to stay within the guidelines.
by dang - > "The Trump administration is proud to support the rebirth of America’s nuclear industry and ensuring Americans have access to affordable, reliable and secure energy for generations to come."
> "The demonstration and the licensing pathway it establishes represent a key step toward deploying electricity-producing microreactors for U.S. military installations by September 30, 2028."
So which is it? Power to the people or power to the military? This microreactor concept doesn't seem very well suited for commercial use.
by sfn42 - "Antares is a nuclear fission energy company developing compact microreactors for defense and space applications"by ablation
- Why would microreactor concepts not be suitable for commercial use? History is overwhelmed with examples of large, rare and expensive tech being produced in small cheap packages and becoming massive commercial successes that make the old way look primitive.by roenxi
- Is anyone working in the US on a waste solution that isn’t a big hole with a straight out of cyberpunk sci-fi warning plaque?
The French reprocess and recycle fissile material but that’s kind of a gnarly industrial process. Still they do it and it works.
The long term solution is to create a second kind of reactor that has a higher burn fraction which means a more fuel efficient fast reactor. Those would be, ideally, the big base load plants if we did this rationally.
by api - IMO, the long term solution will be to simply launch the waste into space. With low enough launch costs the extra mass needed to armor the waste against accidents becomes tolerable.by pfdietz
- Fast neutron reactors can also "burn" waste from other reactors, the "ashes" are radioactive for only 300 years, there is no need for special storage after that. Untreated waste has to be kept in storage for around 100K years before it reaches safe levels of radioactivity.
Other than marketing propaganda, there isn't much real information about Mark-0. I'm assuming it's a sodium cooled, slow and hot pebble bed reactor. Hot pebble beds are well known but one with sodium cooling appears to be a first.
Why slow sodium? You get all the risks associated with sodium with none of the benefits of fast neutrons. There are operational, electricity producing, fast sodium reactors which do make some sense. I can't say the same for Mark-0.
by bigbadfeline - Europe has about 60,000 tons of nuclear waste storage[1], so lets say the global nuclear waste quantity is 2-3x or 120,000 to 180,000 tons. That sounds like a lot, however it's less than 2 weeks of coal deliveries to a coal plant (at 1 train of 115 cars each with 116 tons of coal = 13,340 tons delivered per day[2]). To take another approach, the average landfill size is 600 acres[3].
The "eh, just bury it" approach is really not a bad one. Its not even that much stuff to bury
[1] https://worldnuclearwastereport.org/
[2] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=16651
[3] https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2021/04/15/hidden-damage-la...
by quirkot - I don't see the issue with dry cask storage medium term, and deep geological storage long term. Spent fuel isn't really that dangerous once it's been cooled down and for a couple decades before putting it in the ground, to the point that there are far more dangerous natural things you can dig up.
What concerns me is that 250 years of fossil fuel energy continues to store its waste products in my lungs and the water I drink. That's the issue we need to solve with urgency.
by yabones - Other than "not light-water", what type of reactor is it?by NoGravitas
- Graphite-moderated core, passively cooled with sodium filled heat pipes:
https://antaresindustries.com/
It also uses a Brayton cycle generator with nitrogen instead of steam.
(See 03, 04, 06 in their schematic outline.)
by philipkglass - I am still quite confused on the scientific consensus:
Should we double down on renewable energy and solve its issues with lots of batteries or should we invest in next generation nuclear energy?
Both at the same time?
Does anyone know?
by Traubenfuchs - We're gonna need portable energy storage regardless of energy source, it's battery vs fuel. There is no such things as battery vs atomic core.by nsonha
- That's a political and economic question, not a scientific one. Science can provide input information, but the decision involves weighing all sorts of facts and considerations outside the scope of science.by rayiner
- It's more of an engineering call than something that can be purely determined from inductive reasoning. I think most engineers working in the space would say "both" are needed, but partisans exist on both sides.by tech_ken
- When it comes to avoiding the worst impacts of the current catastrophic path we’re on, “nothing will work, but everything might”.
Do it all.
by bevekspldnw - If your location already has a well-run nuclear energy sector (Finland, Sweden, South Korea): invest in nuclear energy.
If you don't: stick to renewables.
And it also depends on what you mean by "we". As a Dane, I don't think us Danish taxpayers should invest in nuclear energy, but I'm perfectly happy that private Danish investors invest in Seaborg/Saltfoss and Copenhagen Atomics.
by sehansen - Government should tax / provide incentives based on negative externalities such as environmental impact and let the free market decide
https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL%20...
I think a low carbon mix will result in the cheapest, most reliable and cleanest energy grid.
by preisschild - China does: all of the above, where it makes sense.
Renewables and batteries to keep your AC, workplace EV charger, stove, pool heater and (since recently) green ammonia producer going, nuclear to prevent e.g. aluminium smelters from seizing up.
Also the cheapest way to make renewables work 24/7 is to build HVDC lines - they cost as much as a highway per unit length and even undersea cables would deploy for less and faster than equivalent nuclear.
The total length of HVDC lines just in China is currently more than 40k km, so they've literally deployed enough of them to wrap around the globe.
by Tade0 - Both at the same time. I don't see how putting all our eggs in a single basket benefits us.by datakan
- From the article: > We said criticality in 2026, electricity production in 2027, and power to the warfighter in 2028.
Are there any other examples of land-based militaries using nuclear power? Seems kind of like since they can't talk about the energy transition or w/e this has to be a military thing instead.
by tech_ken - "Stalin is proud to support the rebirth of Soviet Russia’s nuclear industry and ensuring soviets have access to affordable, reliable and secure energy for generations to come". Always mention the fearless leader.
- That's originally what the SL-1 reactor was meant for. It was also developed at Idaho Falls.
Instead of parking diesel generators up at Arctic radar stations (and other remote locations), we'd use a nuclear reactor, which is a logical choice.
The problems were:
1) one control rod could send the entire reactor prompt critical
2) rods could get stuck, requiring that they be "exercised" very carefully as to prevent them from making #1 happen
3) this maintenance was being done by a man in his early 20s who had been sleep deprived and received a phone call before his shift from his wife asking for a divorce
The result was the only immediately-fatal reactor accident in American history.
Glad to see that we're getting over this and moving forward with the concept. Only took us 60+ years...
by lenerdenator - Congrats to everyone involved. This is a pretty awesome milestoneby seanhunter
- To add a bit of context there were 11 companies participating in program and only 2 achieved critiality, and the deadline included in "DOE Reactor Pilot Program" was "July 4, 2026", and Aalo Atomics is the only one that might also make it in time.by mDyJzDPmBdG
- TRISO fuel so.. pebble bed? Is there a reluctance to market on this? The Chinese were all-in.
Great to see engineering deliver on time. I wonder if Rolls Royce will also have a smooth ride. It's a PWR.
by ggm - The Rolls Royce modular reactor update page [1] leaves me scratching my head as to where they are, it seems they've passed some really hard UK regulation though, maybe the official source is not the best:by boznz
- TRISO increases fuel cycle costs. It's harder to make, harder to dispose of, and (IIRC) uses higher enrichment.by pfdietz