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How many Falcon 9s did SpaceX blow up before they got a successful launch? Are you willing to have that many meltdowns in order to get your "highly modular, eff

How many Falcon 9s did SpaceX blow up before they got a successful launch? Are you willing to have that many meltdowns in order to get your "highly modular, efficient, miniature 'assemble-yourself' nuclear power plants"? Even if you are, how are you going to convince people that it's worth it? What are you going to say when the press tars your project with the headline, "A Fukushima In Your Backyard?"

whimsicalism 6y ago
Yeah people suck at critical reasoning.
darkerside 6y ago
Falcon 9 had been an amazing success, which kind of defeats your point. Of course you need to perfect the technology (or close to it) before you deploy it. People are easily defeated by repetition. To paraphrase, if you have one reactor and it fails, it's a news story. If you have one million reactors and one fails, it's a statistic.
LinuxBender 6y ago
Yes. Build the first ones in a desert. Do chaos testing, stress testing and over-engineer each component and the whole system so that any teenager can install and operate it. I'm not kidding. Make it "teen certified".
- cratermoon 6y ago
  > Build the first ones in a desert Leaving aside the fact the deserts are essential biomes on their own and shouldn't be treated as garbage dumps, didn't Fukishima and Chernobyl teach us that putting nuclear power plants "way over there away from anything" doesn't really matter in the case of a serious accident?
  - manfredo 6y ago
    Well, we've already got a tract of desert that's been heavily irradiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site
    - cratermoon 6y ago
      We've also got an ocean full of plastic and has hotspots where nuclear waste was dumped[1]. That's no reason to go around saying, "well, we've already trashed it, might as well let it continue to be trashed" 1. https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1198/chapters/207-217_RadWaste.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1198/chapters/207-217_RadWaste.p...
  - zamalek 6y ago
    > "way over there away from anything" doesn't really matter in the case of a serious accident? The current level of burning coal equates to roughly 50 nuclear meltdowns a year because coal contains thorium. So in terms of "putting it anywhere," an in-place switch from coal to fission in a populated area is actually safer. In addition, the article identifies outdated designs as the primary reason for the cost of nuclear plant rollout. Guess what? Modern plant designs are passively safe, particle physics (not electronics, nor mechanics, nor humans) prevents criticality events.
    - cratermoon 6y ago
      I'm afraid that the "coal is more radioactive" argument isn't going to get the traction that it did in 20 years ago. There are too many caveats and assumptions made in what the level of radioactivity in coal ash means to meaningfully compare it to fissionable radionuclides. As measured by GHG emissions, nuclear power is certainly better for the climate. Whether or not that equates to "safer for human activity"? The devil is in the details.
      - zamalek 6y ago
        > There are too many caveats and assumptions made in what the level of radioactivity in coal ash means to meaningfully compare it to fissionable radionuclides. If the reactor is passively safe, the amortized level of radioactivity is zero, especially if the waste is "burned" in secondary reactors (such as TWR).
        cratermoon 6y ago
        "if" and "amortized" are just different forms for caveats and assumptions. The level of radioactivity amortized over how long? Long enough time scales and the level of radioactivity is 0 for everything in the entire universe.
        zamalek 6y ago
        Way to needlessly misrepresent the argument. Amortized over the duration where we are typically seeing meltdowns in gen1 reactors. 10-50 years? > "if" The article talks about modern designs. It is an aspiration, not an assumption. The central argument is that adopting modern reactor designs eliminates meltdown concerns (in addition to reducing costs as the article suggests). That isn't an assumption, that is a suggestion.
theferalrobot 6y ago
And presumably they would melt down a few plants in the Nevada desert nuclear sites before launching... there’s an obvious difference between testing and deployment
pjscott 6y ago
The first Falcon 9 launch was a success -- maybe you're thinking of the older Falcon 1 rockets that exploded during launch?

whimsicalism 6y ago

Yeah people suck at critical reasoning.

darkerside 6y ago

Falcon 9 had been an amazing success, which kind of defeats your point. Of course you need to perfect the technology (or close to it) before you deploy it. People are easily defeated by repetition. To paraphrase, if you have one reactor and it fails, it's a news story. If you have one million reactors and one fails, it's a statistic.

LinuxBender 6y ago

Yes. Build the first ones in a desert. Do chaos testing, stress testing and over-engineer each component and the whole system so that any teenager can install and operate it. I'm not kidding. Make it "teen certified".

cratermoon 6y ago
> Build the first ones in a desert Leaving aside the fact the deserts are essential biomes on their own and shouldn't be treated as garbage dumps, didn't Fukishima and Chernobyl teach us that putting nuclear power plants "way over there away from anything" doesn't really matter in the case of a serious accident?
- manfredo 6y ago
  Well, we've already got a tract of desert that's been heavily irradiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site
  - cratermoon 6y ago
    We've also got an ocean full of plastic and has hotspots where nuclear waste was dumped[1]. That's no reason to go around saying, "well, we've already trashed it, might as well let it continue to be trashed" 1. https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1198/chapters/207-217_RadWaste.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1198/chapters/207-217_RadWaste.p...
- zamalek 6y ago
  > "way over there away from anything" doesn't really matter in the case of a serious accident? The current level of burning coal equates to roughly 50 nuclear meltdowns a year because coal contains thorium. So in terms of "putting it anywhere," an in-place switch from coal to fission in a populated area is actually safer. In addition, the article identifies outdated designs as the primary reason for the cost of nuclear plant rollout. Guess what? Modern plant designs are passively safe, particle physics (not electronics, nor mechanics, nor humans) prevents criticality events.
  - cratermoon 6y ago
    I'm afraid that the "coal is more radioactive" argument isn't going to get the traction that it did in 20 years ago. There are too many caveats and assumptions made in what the level of radioactivity in coal ash means to meaningfully compare it to fissionable radionuclides. As measured by GHG emissions, nuclear power is certainly better for the climate. Whether or not that equates to "safer for human activity"? The devil is in the details.
    - zamalek 6y ago
      > There are too many caveats and assumptions made in what the level of radioactivity in coal ash means to meaningfully compare it to fissionable radionuclides. If the reactor is passively safe, the amortized level of radioactivity is zero, especially if the waste is "burned" in secondary reactors (such as TWR).
      - cratermoon 6y ago
        "if" and "amortized" are just different forms for caveats and assumptions. The level of radioactivity amortized over how long? Long enough time scales and the level of radioactivity is 0 for everything in the entire universe.
        zamalek 6y ago
        Way to needlessly misrepresent the argument. Amortized over the duration where we are typically seeing meltdowns in gen1 reactors. 10-50 years? > "if" The article talks about modern designs. It is an aspiration, not an assumption. The central argument is that adopting modern reactor designs eliminates meltdown concerns (in addition to reducing costs as the article suggests). That isn't an assumption, that is a suggestion.

theferalrobot 6y ago

And presumably they would melt down a few plants in the Nevada desert nuclear sites before launching... there’s an obvious difference between testing and deployment

pjscott 6y ago

The first Falcon 9 launch was a success -- maybe you're thinking of the older Falcon 1 rockets that exploded during launch?