3 ms·
Well, there's a lot of hidden assumptions here. If by "nuclear" you mean pressurized solid fuel reactors, well yeah I agree. But EVERY nuclear idea out there?
by AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Well, there's a lot of hidden assumptions here.
If by "nuclear" you mean pressurized solid fuel reactors, well yeah I agree.
But EVERY nuclear idea out there? Come on, the orders of magnitude of power density, availability of thorium an others for fuel, there has to be SOME design that is safe and economical.
But "economics" is a moving target with Solar/Wind cost improvements year on year.
That will eventually stabilize. Then there's a fixed target.
I hope that:
1) this target puts all the PWR people and their entrenched regulatory influence and reprocessing and lobbying to death. That does exist, and it is a major blocker. Too many people are making money as old nuclear circles the drain.
When that gets permanently put to bed, then ...
2) Then some LFTR/pebblebed/whatever design starts getting actually researched and invested in. The LFTR people claim that it's illegal to do liquid reactor research, which is why the pebble bed is being researched. I don't know the regs to know if they are telling the truth, but it does show lots of "chilling effects".
Then you target an actual number. Probably would require an iterable and scalable design.
Space may be the other good pusher.
But it's going to be a couple decades before nuclear should think about pushing anything to market, and the old nuclear should be shut down when battery storage gets good enough to replace it.
A couple decades is a generation, and it will clear the table of the old guard.