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The first working nuclear reactor was hastily cobbled together in a tennis court. It's literally just a critical mass of inexpensive magic rocks, a control syst
by AI_WAIFU 6y ago
The first working nuclear reactor was hastily cobbled together in a tennis court. It's literally just a critical mass of inexpensive magic rocks, a control system, and some way to remove the heat.
The only reason it costs so much is precisely because everyone is paranoid, so we demand expensive security systems and protocols. If the regulators got out of the way you could probably put one together for a few million dollars.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y agoWe could, but we shouldn't. The fact that we can is probably the reason for the fears around the reactor. People don't fear the technical limitations of a well-build and well-managed safe reactor, and those can be built. But they fear the danger of the corruption and corner-cutting in some countries which is very difficult to constrain, which will lead to building an unsafe reactor.
- shadowgovt 6y agoAnd the consequences of building such a reactor. At the height of the Chernobyl disaster, calculations were suggesting a vast swath of Europe could be rendered uninhabitable by humans for several generations in the melt-to-groundwater-detonation scenario. As it stands, an area of diameter slightly smaller than the length of Manhattan is still considered high-risk for permanent habitation.