https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-cooled_fast_reactor
[0] https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-...
Sodium leaks can be nasty, but they can be dealt with.
I love the promise of nuclear energy, and I understand that every single engineering decision has tradeoffs, but these tradeoffs just seem so bad? Are there really no better options?
> They’ll reverse IPO along the way and manipulate the stock enough to get insiders paid out while the carcass of a company trundles along.
I'm not sure what "reverse IPO" means, maybe you mean they'll be acquired by a SPAC, like NuScale was. I doubt it. Bill Gates founded Terrapower in 2008, he is not looking for a quick buck.
But that also applies for the current generation of reactors and nobody can build them to schedule or budget in the USA or Europe.
But when that fails, you can just siphon up taxpayer money via your connections to the ruling cabal.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tiny-trump-linked-firm-in-line...
The NRC frequently changes requirements for reactors while they're under construction. The NRC does not waive the right to demand changes merely due to prior design approval. This is a novel (for the US) design, so there will be unanticipated changes as the project progresses.
Russia has been operating two sodium cooled fast reactors for decades. The BN-600 and BN-800 are both operating today. The early history of the BN-600 was... interesting, suffering (at least) 14 sodium fires due to leaks. This "Natrium" design is similar; a sodium pool with two sodium loops. They are taking on the additional challenge of storing a massive quantity of molten salt. It's going to take a lot of effort by many steely eyed missile people to make this happen.
Trump issued an EO in 2025 that's supposed to make the NRC more circumspect about requiring changes of approved designs. Then there is all the pull Gates has. Wyoming is no hotbed of anti-nuclear activism. So that's all to TerraPower's favor. But TerraPower will need to fully utilize all the tailwind it can find to make this work.
Put it this way, if it's in commercial operation by 2031 I'll eat my hat.
Even with all that experience and expertise, their questionable environmental policies and questionable worker rights, it still takes them SEVEN years to build a single nuke.
The claim that anyone else can do it faster with zero recent experience isn’t only laughable, it’s downright fraud.
Seems like we could match a 7 year clip at a much smaller scale. We'll be forced to at some point, but we need to overhaul the regulatory mess and fix the grid first. Hopefully that happens long before battalions of Chinese drones and droids take over the world.
Todays U.S. meeting "Roundtable on Ratepayer Protection Pledge" with the U.S. President himself leading that meeting garnished commitments from Big Tech as it relates to energy. In time Big Tech Energy divisions will be thing and some citizens will be paying their utilities bill to them.
So assuming the pipe maintenance is done at cost, with no money not being spent on the network. What would your better net positive solution even look like?
0 under construction in the US
Huh? You’re going to need a citation to throw those kind of accusations around. A serial philanderer? Absolutely. But all indications are he was interested in adult women, not even young women. I think the Russian call girls that Epstein set him up with were in their 30s?
I'll be surprised if this project actually gets built, though.
Nuclear power plants aren’t flexible enough for sudden changes in energy consumption.
Are you describing the "just build nukes" party here?
Cause we've been waiting a while for this nuke solution to actually ship but every example is far more expensive all while the nuke lovers block solar and wind for the same reasons.