3 ms·

My two cents here from the industry I am in. Thesis: I can't see any nuclear reactor at the paper stage in 2016 beating the small modular reactors from westingh

by DrNuke 10y ago

My two cents here from the industry I am in. Thesis: I can't see any nuclear reactor at the paper stage in 2016 beating the small modular reactors from westinghouse (III gen integral pwr) or ge-hitachi (IV gen PRISM sfr) to the 2030 race for the next coming innovative fleets in the Western World. Corollary: Elsewhere, China and Russia will probably risk more and do better at raising the bar of progress. Action: What can be done at YC level then imho? There may be a niche in standardising the design of the most critical components using data science methods, think of an Ikea for the nuclear island. Hard tech, reduced to the simplest problem with a customer, may be the for nuclear sector some critical process (a new material?) or some critical component (a one-fits-all vessel?), both economically affordable at the lab level and at the computer-powered engineering design.

acidburnNSA 10y ago
It can take decades in-reactor to accumulate the irradiation dose needed to prove out really advanced fuels and materials. We really need an international nuclear innovation center complete with a flexible test reactor (high flux, fast spectrum, multiple independent coolant loops), legit post-irradiation examination facilities, core mockup facilities for mechanical design, flow loops for thermal/hydraulics, etc. This is extremely expensive to build and maintain, so a business model that can make money along the way (medical isotope production, Pu238 for space travel, easy access to many customers, etc.) is needed, though multi-mission stuff can add lots of institutional complexity. The national labs are supposed to play this role, and are doing so to a degree, but the current lack of facilities really saddens my advanced nuclear design soul. Russia has operating sodium-cooled reactors (BOR-60, BN-350, BN-600) and low-power critical facilities (BFS-1&2). Using those, they can develop and test new nuclear structural materials and fuels that push the envelope. And shipping materials to Russia for testing and bringing it back for investigation is ridiculously hard. Politically streamlining collaboration is essential for nuclear progress. The US shut down its best test reactors (FFTF near Handford, WA and EBR-2 in Idaho) in the 90s so it's pretty challenging to iterate. At least we're trying to turn TREAT back on now. So what can a nuclear startup do? Sam is right. You have to focus on small things and bootstrap yourself up. I was an advisor to Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp a few months ago and the team wanted to build a new giant reactor in Diablo Canyon's containment for hydrogen production. Big picture stuff. I encouraged them to focus on something more specific, like technology for coupling the nuclear island to an industrial unit (hydrogen, desal, ... anything) while being able to smoothly alternate power between it and the turbine (for load following on the grid). It's a lot less glorious to work on something like that, but that's the only way to get started in this field unless you're sitting at the non-existent international nuclear tech center, or on $1B of very patient seed money.
- DrNuke 10y ago
  Hello, great post, thanks! About the material: it may be an incremental steel alloy, for which data science methods can help a lot: for the learning part, feed the results (the plots with dpa irradiation vs damage in terms of displacement, swelling, bubbles o whatever relevant) from the 2000-2016 papers from Western and Chinese universities aiming at the same target; for prediction, let deep neural networks or extreme gradient boosting cluster or classify or rank the nearest alloy that solves your most urgent technological readiness problem. This would help speed the process imho.

by DrNuke 10y ago

acidburnNSA 10y ago

It can take decades in-reactor to accumulate the irradiation dose needed to prove out really advanced fuels and materials. We really need an international nuclear innovation center complete with a flexible test reactor (high flux, fast spectrum, multiple independent coolant loops), legit post-irradiation examination facilities, core mockup facilities for mechanical design, flow loops for thermal/hydraulics, etc. This is extremely expensive to build and maintain, so a business model that can make money along the way (medical isotope production, Pu238 for space travel, easy access to many customers, etc.) is needed, though multi-mission stuff can add lots of institutional complexity. The national labs are supposed to play this role, and are doing so to a degree, but the current lack of facilities really saddens my advanced nuclear design soul. Russia has operating sodium-cooled reactors (BOR-60, BN-350, BN-600) and low-power critical facilities (BFS-1&2). Using those, they can develop and test new nuclear structural materials and fuels that push the envelope. And shipping materials to Russia for testing and bringing it back for investigation is ridiculously hard. Politically streamlining collaboration is essential for nuclear progress. The US shut down its best test reactors (FFTF near Handford, WA and EBR-2 in Idaho) in the 90s so it's pretty challenging to iterate. At least we're trying to turn TREAT back on now. So what can a nuclear startup do? Sam is right. You have to focus on small things and bootstrap yourself up. I was an advisor to Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp a few months ago and the team wanted to build a new giant reactor in Diablo Canyon's containment for hydrogen production. Big picture stuff. I encouraged them to focus on something more specific, like technology for coupling the nuclear island to an industrial unit (hydrogen, desal, ... anything) while being able to smoothly alternate power between it and the turbine (for load following on the grid). It's a lot less glorious to work on something like that, but that's the only way to get started in this field unless you're sitting at the non-existent international nuclear tech center, or on $1B of very patient seed money.

DrNuke 10y ago
Hello, great post, thanks! About the material: it may be an incremental steel alloy, for which data science methods can help a lot: for the learning part, feed the results (the plots with dpa irradiation vs damage in terms of displacement, swelling, bubbles o whatever relevant) from the 2000-2016 papers from Western and Chinese universities aiming at the same target; for prediction, let deep neural networks or extreme gradient boosting cluster or classify or rank the nearest alloy that solves your most urgent technological readiness problem. This would help speed the process imho.