

The 500MW molten salt nuclear reactor - rosser
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/150551-the-500mw-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor-safe-half-the-price-of-light-water-and-shipped-to-order

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apendleton
This article is vague on the specifics, but it looks from their website like
they're talking about an MSR using a conventional uranium fuel cycle, rather
than going the Thorium route like lots of other MSR enthusiasts seem to want
to... I wonder why they went that route? Seems like if you're going to go to
the effort of developing a new reactor design from scratch, there's not really
any reason to leave half of the potential benefits on the table (proliferation
resistance, fuel abundance, etc.).

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LeeHunter
It runs on nuclear waste <http://transatomicpower.com/products.php>

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apendleton
Right, I'm aware, but that still requires uranium mining to have fueled the
original reactors to make the waste, so it's not a solution to either
proliferation or supply, at least long-term.

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twentysix
Here is the TEDx talk given by the founders

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AAFWeIp8JT0#t=315s)

They talk about minimizing waste and using nuclear waste to power the
reactors, but the article doesn't mention it at all.

<http://transatomicpower.com/products.php>

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dmm
From Nassim Taleb[1]

"""

The Japanese Nuclear Commission had the following goals set in 2003: " The
mean value of acute fatality risk by radiation exposure resultant from an
accident of a nuclear installation to individuals of the public, who live in
the vicinity of the site boundary of the nuclear installation, should not
exceed the probability of about 1x10^6 per year (that is , at least 1 per
million years)".

That policy was designed only 8 years ago. Their one in a million-year
accident almost occurred about 8 year later (I am not even sure if it is at
best a near miss). We are clearly in the Fourth Quadrant there.

""" \--

Me:

Human beings are not capable of estimating the risks from Nuclear power plant
operation. Take from that what you will.

[1]<http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm>

~~~
tptacek
You'd think Taleb would have an immediate intuitive sense of how "once in a
million year" accidents fit our narrative biases, but the slow-motion
devastation of large areas of the US and the deaths of tens of thousands of
people attributable to inhaled fossil fuel pollution don't.

~~~
dmm
I believe that nuclear power is much safer and less destructive to the
environment than mining and burning coal(for example).

But when Tokyo Power sought to build the nuclear plant at Ōkuma I guarantee
you they didn't tell people, "this will totally kill fewer people than a coal
plant would". They promised absolute safety. The Japanese nuclear regulatory
agency didn't promise fewer deaths than the equivalent coal plant. They
promised 1 death every million years.

Nuclear power makes huge promises and when it fails to live up to them it
tries to change the standard by which it's judged.

~~~
tptacek
Do you get the sense that Taleb disagrees with that first sentence? I do.

~~~
dmm
I think his point is the continual failure of humans to estimate risks
involving complex phenomenon, not specifically about the appropriateness of
nuclear power.

Taleb seems to greatly respect empirical evidence as opposed to models and
theories. If you presented him with the evidence that fossil fuel power plants
kill thousands per year versus the deaths caused by nuclear power, I imagine
it would go a long way towards convincing him that nuclear power was better.

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Tloewald
The article is pretty thin, and starts out by stating that no-one doubts the
ability of nuclear power to supply our energy needs more or less indefinitely
(I'd copy and paste the exact sentence but I can't — argh). This is a bad
start.

MSR does look like a technology worth revisiting, but this article is a puff
piece.

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viraj_shah
The article certainly doesn't state anything new. Fail safes such as the
"freeze plug" or the ship to order model or the lack of pressurization are not
new. On the flip side though, at least we're seeing this resurgence (in public
interest) in nuclear technology whether it be MSRs or other Generation IV+
reactors. Maybe having private companies make significant progress on a tight
budget is what it takes to drive further funding from large governmental
bodies, just as in the Space industry.

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jared314
If they can't raise enough money for a large installation, why can they not
build a small one? Is it financially/regulatory prohibitive?

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fnordfnordfnord
Regulatory is a huge problem. IIRC Sorensen was estimating offhand that the
first (modern) prototype/unit would take one or two billion.

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Daniel_Newby
Please stop linking to Extremetech. It forcibly redirects some browsers to a
broken mobile site.

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revelation
_MSR reactors replace such delicate systems with rugged ones: gravity, heat,
and the most basic chemical properties of their materials._

So they replace the ultimate fail-safe version with a now ultimately ultimate
fail-safe version? Not to mention that of course Fukushima was built to
withstand these losses. Oops, that didn't work? How come? It was all so fail-
safe and rugged.

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lookACamel
Fukushima wasn't prepared for the tsunami. The Onagawa plant had a seawall
more than 9m high. It successfully shut down without incident even though it
was closer to the epicenter than Fukushima. In fact, families actually took
refuge in the plant during the tsunami.
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/30/onagawa-
tsunami-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/30/onagawa-tsunami-
refugees-nuclear-plant)

