4 ms·

A number of reasons, but for starters, consider inequality. Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? They are expensi

by beat 7y ago

A number of reasons, but for starters, consider inequality. Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? They are expensive, require tremendous infrastructure, and mean deploying fissionable materials to countries that maybe shouldn't have them. So it's solving a First World problem, and exacerbating the divide between rich and poor.

smileysteve 7y ago
> Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? This is an excellent case for these lighter reactors, but perhaps more so for molten salt / Thorium reactors. Where this reactor has smaller amounts of radioactive material and Thorium has little use in weapons.
- beat 7y ago
  I have a market argument against thorium reactors - basically, if they were as awesome as their proponents argue, then someone would have built one by now, for commercial purposes. But there hasn't ever been a commercial thorium reactor, and there hasn't been a serious build since the 1960s. Fifty years, and a lot of countries that aren't full of namby-pamby treehuggers to blame for it. Even India, which is sitting on like a third of the world's thorium reserves, doesn't build them. This makes me rather suspect that thorium isn't nearly as awesome as its proponents think it is.
UnFleshedOne 7y ago
Wouldn't that reason cover basically every infrastructure, economic and legal improvement you could possibly think of in all areas, as long as they are reasonably hard to do for a troubled country? Even a basic thing like a Rule of Law that we take for granted hugely increases inequality between countries that have it and those that don't. Solution to that does not involve encouraging warlords to move into Manhattan. If a country can't afford / can't be trusted with energy generation technology, and you care, help fix the underlaying reasons.

by beat 7y ago

smileysteve 7y ago

> Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? This is an excellent case for these lighter reactors, but perhaps more so for molten salt / Thorium reactors. Where this reactor has smaller amounts of radioactive material and Thorium has little use in weapons.

beat 7y ago
I have a market argument against thorium reactors - basically, if they were as awesome as their proponents argue, then someone would have built one by now, for commercial purposes. But there hasn't ever been a commercial thorium reactor, and there hasn't been a serious build since the 1960s. Fifty years, and a lot of countries that aren't full of namby-pamby treehuggers to blame for it. Even India, which is sitting on like a third of the world's thorium reserves, doesn't build them. This makes me rather suspect that thorium isn't nearly as awesome as its proponents think it is.

UnFleshedOne 7y ago

Wouldn't that reason cover basically every infrastructure, economic and legal improvement you could possibly think of in all areas, as long as they are reasonably hard to do for a troubled country? Even a basic thing like a Rule of Law that we take for granted hugely increases inequality between countries that have it and those that don't. Solution to that does not involve encouraging warlords to move into Manhattan. If a country can't afford / can't be trusted with energy generation technology, and you care, help fix the underlaying reasons.