5 ms·

I'm a reactor designer and I love the idea of open-source reactor design. It's a wonderful way to add some longevity beyond typical congressional funding cycles

I'm a reactor designer and I love the idea of open-source reactor design. It's a wonderful way to add some longevity beyond typical congressional funding cycles to these long-term reactor projects. The national labs may have 2 years of funding on gas-cooled reactors, but then mothball those and move to sodium-cooled reactors, and so forth. The lack of continuity is leads to lack of momentum which leads to stagnation. People even forget stuff and have to rediscover it years later. Also the nuclear industry is small and struggling. Open-source may enable collaboration on a new level that could be really exciting. Th problem so far is that the nuclear industry is really secretive. We like to think we have the best design, and all other designs are goofy. We like to patent things and protect secrets. The nuclear industry started in secrecy, developed in secrecy, and still has a lot of it. But it's struggling so much with cheap natural gas and popular intermittent renewables that it's kind of a do or die situation. Open source is a brilliant step. All that said, reactor projects don't run themselves. Transatomic shut down and open-sourced their design. For it to go anywhere, it needs dozens of well-funded or otherwise highly engaged people managing the project. Nuclear builds are about as complex as projects come and simply open sourcing it won't go far. So the next step here is for the nukes to agree on a particular open source design, fill in a business plan, and start going. In any case it's exciting times.

stcredzero 8y ago
The problem so far is that the nuclear industry is really secretive. We like to think we have the best design, and all other designs are goofy. We like to patent things and protect secrets. The nuclear industry started in secrecy, developed in secrecy, and still has a lot of it. This is precisely the condition much of the software industry was in, when Stallman came up with Free Software. You could s/nuclear/software/ and the above would have been mostly true. So maybe Open Source is what's needed here.
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  Using open source software is nothing like building a reactor based on an open source design...
  - yotamoron 8y ago
    This is true by definition - no 2 things are the exact same (otherwise its the same thing), but the same priciples might apply here as well.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    No but the idea of scientific journals for example is that there's a wider science community which collaboratively iterates. It's the same thing which has happened for engineered artifacts such as 3d printers. A world where the nuclear industry has a common best Practice design for each reactor, overseen by a steering committee of experts ala the Linux kernel, could actually lead to some progress and allow building some coherent and verifiable narratives about safety.
- ngcc_hk 8y ago
  Not totally. The share / guide and even the Ibm os was open source up to a point you can still run Ibm mainframe on pc for those 1970 era. No one care about software. It is bill gate who start the commericalism and the availability of cheap pc that start it all. What stallman did was to point to the importance of licensing scheme for the cooperation to work. Linus chose the license to avoid unix and minix issue.
- endymi0n 8y ago
  ...the following decade used to be known as the „Golden age of Open Source reactor design“ with tens of thousands of international contributors coming up with clever, proliferation resistant designs. This time lasted until Amazon Reactor Services and Google Nuclear Cloud scooped up the best ideas of those designs (as well as hiring all important contributors) into their proprietary reactor designs, enabling anyone to easily spawn a cloud nuclear reactor worldwide, leaving 90% margin to these companies and leaving early dreams and ambitions in the dust...
  - MisterTea 8y ago
    > Amazon Reactor Services and Google Nuclear Cloud The fools. The mad fools.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      Near the end of the story, someone figures out a device that uses actual atmospheric clouds as material for fusion chain reactions.
- noobermin 8y ago
  Is this really true? I thought it had more to do with the four freedoms Stallman talks up so much.
mrfusion 8y ago
You should get Involved! I bet they need nuclear designers.
wongarsu 8y ago
> We like to patent things and protect secrets. This actually seems like a good opportunity to use patents. Something like "we integrate your patented idea in our open-source design as long as you agree in writing to give anyone interested a licence at reasonable terms as specified below". Of course this has to be done carefully but has the potential to finance research and promote the exchange of ideas (exactly what the patent system was originally conceived for).
openPDFdump 8y ago
Okay, great. It’s free and out in the open, for people to study and maybe expand and iterate with. But a directory tree full of PDF files is still less than compelling. It’s something akin to a public domain screenplay. Okay, we have a script. Now what?
est31 8y ago
> Th problem so far is that the nuclear industry is really secretive. Why is that a problem? Do you want to make it easier for countries to figure out how to build nuclear bombs? Generally I'm a big fan of open source and so on, but when it comes to nuclear or dangerous biological agents, I prefer having these things locked away really well.
- godelski 8y ago
  Reactors are VERY different from weapons. And not all reactors result in weapons grade materials.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Reactors are not bombs, bombs are not reactors.
  - est31 8y ago
    Reactors can be used to breed nuclear bomb grade material. Building a dirty bomb is trivial if you can build normal bombs. For upgrading that to a nuke the main difficulty is finding nuke grade material.
    - garmaine 8y ago
      Nope, this isn't true. First of all there are many different kinds of nuclear reactors, and only certain ones can be used for making weapons-grade material. Second, the isotope separation process for U238 or the implosion mechanism for plutonium are either massive or crazy difficult to pull off, and totally unrelated to reactor design. A reactor design doesn't get you anywhere meaningfully closer to building a bomb.
      - SiempreViernes 8y ago
        A reactor gets you experience handling nuclear components, and if chosen with a bomb in mind also plutonium or other useful isotopes. There is a real reason Israel bombed Syria as soon as they got convincing evidence Assad was building a secret reactor.

stcredzero 8y ago

The problem so far is that the nuclear industry is really secretive. We like to think we have the best design, and all other designs are goofy. We like to patent things and protect secrets. The nuclear industry started in secrecy, developed in secrecy, and still has a lot of it. This is precisely the condition much of the software industry was in, when Stallman came up with Free Software. You could s/nuclear/software/ and the above would have been mostly true. So maybe Open Source is what's needed here.

Cyph0n 8y ago
Using open source software is nothing like building a reactor based on an open source design...
- yotamoron 8y ago
  This is true by definition - no 2 things are the exact same (otherwise its the same thing), but the same priciples might apply here as well.
- XorNot 8y ago
  No but the idea of scientific journals for example is that there's a wider science community which collaboratively iterates. It's the same thing which has happened for engineered artifacts such as 3d printers. A world where the nuclear industry has a common best Practice design for each reactor, overseen by a steering committee of experts ala the Linux kernel, could actually lead to some progress and allow building some coherent and verifiable narratives about safety.
ngcc_hk 8y ago
Not totally. The share / guide and even the Ibm os was open source up to a point you can still run Ibm mainframe on pc for those 1970 era. No one care about software. It is bill gate who start the commericalism and the availability of cheap pc that start it all. What stallman did was to point to the importance of licensing scheme for the cooperation to work. Linus chose the license to avoid unix and minix issue.
endymi0n 8y ago
...the following decade used to be known as the „Golden age of Open Source reactor design“ with tens of thousands of international contributors coming up with clever, proliferation resistant designs. This time lasted until Amazon Reactor Services and Google Nuclear Cloud scooped up the best ideas of those designs (as well as hiring all important contributors) into their proprietary reactor designs, enabling anyone to easily spawn a cloud nuclear reactor worldwide, leaving 90% margin to these companies and leaving early dreams and ambitions in the dust...
- MisterTea 8y ago
  > Amazon Reactor Services and Google Nuclear Cloud The fools. The mad fools.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Near the end of the story, someone figures out a device that uses actual atmospheric clouds as material for fusion chain reactions.
noobermin 8y ago
Is this really true? I thought it had more to do with the four freedoms Stallman talks up so much.

mrfusion 8y ago

You should get Involved! I bet they need nuclear designers.

wongarsu 8y ago

> We like to patent things and protect secrets. This actually seems like a good opportunity to use patents. Something like "we integrate your patented idea in our open-source design as long as you agree in writing to give anyone interested a licence at reasonable terms as specified below". Of course this has to be done carefully but has the potential to finance research and promote the exchange of ideas (exactly what the patent system was originally conceived for).

openPDFdump 8y ago

Okay, great. It’s free and out in the open, for people to study and maybe expand and iterate with. But a directory tree full of PDF files is still less than compelling. It’s something akin to a public domain screenplay. Okay, we have a script. Now what?

est31 8y ago

> Th problem so far is that the nuclear industry is really secretive. Why is that a problem? Do you want to make it easier for countries to figure out how to build nuclear bombs? Generally I'm a big fan of open source and so on, but when it comes to nuclear or dangerous biological agents, I prefer having these things locked away really well.

godelski 8y ago
Reactors are VERY different from weapons. And not all reactors result in weapons grade materials.
garmaine 8y ago
Reactors are not bombs, bombs are not reactors.
- est31 8y ago
  Reactors can be used to breed nuclear bomb grade material. Building a dirty bomb is trivial if you can build normal bombs. For upgrading that to a nuke the main difficulty is finding nuke grade material.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Nope, this isn't true. First of all there are many different kinds of nuclear reactors, and only certain ones can be used for making weapons-grade material. Second, the isotope separation process for U238 or the implosion mechanism for plutonium are either massive or crazy difficult to pull off, and totally unrelated to reactor design. A reactor design doesn't get you anywhere meaningfully closer to building a bomb.
    - SiempreViernes 8y ago
      A reactor gets you experience handling nuclear components, and if chosen with a bomb in mind also plutonium or other useful isotopes. There is a real reason Israel bombed Syria as soon as they got convincing evidence Assad was building a secret reactor.