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Kind of a fraught comparison. SpaceX intentionally learned by blowing rockets up, figuring out what went wrong, fixing, and trying again. The same learning pro

by zrail 4y ago

Kind of a fraught comparison. SpaceX intentionally learned by blowing rockets up, figuring out what went wrong, fixing, and trying again. The same learning process applied to nuclear reactors is problematic at best.

raverbashing 4y ago
You obviously don't need to blow up reactors to learn stuff Build, prototype and see how parts react (for example, corrosion) way before an emergency happens. Build a first version, then improve on a second version. Iterations will work better with smaller reactors than with bigger ones And you do need some research into materials, but that's part of the process and evolution.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  > You obviously don't need to blow up reactors to learn stuff Some people do. Did, even.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    If only Coal plant accidents were taken with such knee-jerk reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      We have seven+ decades of experience now. We are certain of two things. (1) Price of reactor n+1 is not less than n's; (2) every number produced by the nuke industry is a lie.
      - panick21_ 4y ago
        What nonsense. We literally have great evidence that n+1 is n, this is well document and claiming otherwise is nonsense.
panick21_ 4y ago
Rockets blow up because that's what rockets do. You can absolutely build reasonably safe test reactors to verify ideas. That is what they did constantly in the 60s, with multiple new reactors every year. The whole Molten Salt reactor experiment was something like 70 million $ for an amazing project. And dispute that somehow the world didn't blow up and there are no mutant ninja turtles anywhere. What helped SpaceX out was the COTS and CRS program, and something like that could absolutely be world changing in nuclear, but nobody at the DoE has that kind of vision sadly. In fact the mastermind behind COTS has been advocating for something like that for many years now.

by zrail 4y ago

raverbashing 4y ago

You obviously don't need to blow up reactors to learn stuff Build, prototype and see how parts react (for example, corrosion) way before an emergency happens. Build a first version, then improve on a second version. Iterations will work better with smaller reactors than with bigger ones And you do need some research into materials, but that's part of the process and evolution.

moloch-hai 4y ago
> You obviously don't need to blow up reactors to learn stuff Some people do. Did, even.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  If only Coal plant accidents were taken with such knee-jerk reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    We have seven+ decades of experience now. We are certain of two things. (1) Price of reactor n+1 is not less than n's; (2) every number produced by the nuke industry is a lie.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      What nonsense. We literally have great evidence that n+1 is n, this is well document and claiming otherwise is nonsense.

panick21_ 4y ago

Rockets blow up because that's what rockets do. You can absolutely build reasonably safe test reactors to verify ideas. That is what they did constantly in the 60s, with multiple new reactors every year. The whole Molten Salt reactor experiment was something like 70 million $ for an amazing project. And dispute that somehow the world didn't blow up and there are no mutant ninja turtles anywhere. What helped SpaceX out was the COTS and CRS program, and something like that could absolutely be world changing in nuclear, but nobody at the DoE has that kind of vision sadly. In fact the mastermind behind COTS has been advocating for something like that for many years now.