4 ms·

Interesting none of the MSR efforts were mentioned https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-next-gen-nuclear-reactor-program/ https://www.techno

Interesting none of the MSR efforts were mentioned https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-next-gen-nuclear-reactor-program/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-next... In all, there are 700 nuclear engineers working on the molten-salt reactor at SINAP, Xu said, a number that dwarfs other advanced-reactor research programs around the world https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/china-spending-us3-3-billion-on-molten-salt-nuclear-reactors-for-faster-aircraft-carriers-and-in-flying-drones.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/china-spending-us3-3-b... China will spend 22 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) on two prototype molten salt nuclear reactors. But, of course The magazine of the global anti-nuclear community.

spenrose 7y ago
The article says China's deployment plans are being derailed by cost and popular attitudes towards nuclear. The cost of new tech in turn is mostly driven by the chicken-and-egg problem of deployment. So you have to solve deployment, which means you have to change attitudes.
- bassman9000 7y ago
  And to start doing so, you develop passively-safe technologies (walk away), where, by design, Chernobils can't happen.
  - The_rationalist 7y ago
    Chernobyl couldn't happen on today plants anyway. It was a succession of ridiculous human errors, where e.g while stress testing the reactor, they disabled the automatic recovery system. Power plants are now using computers and they wouldn't allow such human stupidity.
    - bassman9000 7y ago
      Thus the passive/walk away. Three Mile Island was a much better Western design, and still shit happened, although with a fraction of the consequences. Fukishima, same. I don't want a computer to be the failsafe. Computers fail. I want safe systems by design. Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI1zVH5ir8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI1zVH5ir8
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        At TMI the core suffered a partial meltdown. Downriver is Chesapeake Bay. Lucky doesn't begin to cover what happened at TMI.
    - chess_buster 7y ago
      Čerenkov-Blue Screen of Death then.
woodandsteel 7y ago
I think it would be great if one of the new nuclear technologies actually panned out and was put into large-scale deployment. But it remains to see if that will actually happen. And that means that for now, we need to assume it might well not, and push ahead as fast as possible with renewables.

spenrose 7y ago

The article says China's deployment plans are being derailed by cost and popular attitudes towards nuclear. The cost of new tech in turn is mostly driven by the chicken-and-egg problem of deployment. So you have to solve deployment, which means you have to change attitudes.

bassman9000 7y ago
And to start doing so, you develop passively-safe technologies (walk away), where, by design, Chernobils can't happen.
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  Chernobyl couldn't happen on today plants anyway. It was a succession of ridiculous human errors, where e.g while stress testing the reactor, they disabled the automatic recovery system. Power plants are now using computers and they wouldn't allow such human stupidity.
  - bassman9000 7y ago
    Thus the passive/walk away. Three Mile Island was a much better Western design, and still shit happened, although with a fraction of the consequences. Fukishima, same. I don't want a computer to be the failsafe. Computers fail. I want safe systems by design. Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI1zVH5ir8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI1zVH5ir8
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      At TMI the core suffered a partial meltdown. Downriver is Chesapeake Bay. Lucky doesn't begin to cover what happened at TMI.
  - chess_buster 7y ago
    Čerenkov-Blue Screen of Death then.

woodandsteel 7y ago

I think it would be great if one of the new nuclear technologies actually panned out and was put into large-scale deployment. But it remains to see if that will actually happen. And that means that for now, we need to assume it might well not, and push ahead as fast as possible with renewables.