5 ms·

Great article, I would love to see more of this kind of stuff on HN. The 350 million dollar question is why the government has to be the sole source of funding

Great article, I would love to see more of this kind of stuff on HN. The 350 million dollar question is why the government has to be the sole source of funding. Obviously the cost is very high, the regulations are very intense, but where are the VCs willing to tackle this kind of "startup" (in reality it would likely be more of a public/private partnership). It's a longer view with higher cost but the payoff could be massive. Big innovation isn't going to happen if it requires congress to agree on supporting it for 10-20 years.

pkrein 14y ago
from what i understand http://flibeenergy.com/ http://flibeenergy.com/ shopped around at VCs in Silicon Valley, but apparently it didn't work out? i think the trick is to find an angle into the business that doesn't involve govt approval up front. some aspect of the problem that can be solved to show momentum, without hitting regulations. maybe the chemistry side of things?
- krschultz 14y ago
  SpaceX had a lot of the same challenges but the first money making contract - flights to ISS - was only about 5-10 years out. NASA also paid them when they hit certain design milestones toward that contract. I would think that the best path forward on this would be for the DOE to setup similar milestones w/ large cash rewards. Private companies compete on getting to those milestones with oversight by the appropriate regulatory bodies. Then once through the initial milestones the company could actually build a small scale reactor, make money on it, then build a large scale and really make some money. Not saying it is going to happen, but that is MORE likely to happen than the DOE building this kind of reactor themselves.
  - apendleton 14y ago
    SpaceX also had the advantage of a very wealthy founder willing to pour lots of his own money into the project. This certainly wasn't enough to finance the entire development up until the first ISS flight, but it did allow him to hire a bunch of hotshot engineers right from the get-go, and probably establish a degree of legitimacy that made attracting more funds, government contracts, etc., somewhat easier. I'd wager that if Elon Musk had decided to fund LFTRs instead of rockets, we'd already have a prototype.
- thingification 14y ago
  I don't know whether they shopped around VCs, but they have said that they aim to sell to the US army. The army has a well-publicised and pressing need for portable compact power sources in places like Iraq. They have also indicated that they would like to produce medical isotopes as a first step. However, the destruction of the US U 233 reserves by the US government may put a stop to that (if it isn't halted -- which seems unlikely, due to lack of interest). The civilian nuclear industry has regulatory lead times measured in decades, and has a mindset heavily tied to the risks posed by solid-fueled reactors. For that reason, the military may in fact be the only opportunity for a company to develop liquid fueled reactors.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Reactor designs are licensed by the NRC, new reactor designs require quite a long review process (as people really have a lot of "What if a ... happened?" questions that need answers) So funding a new reactor design is a multi-decade process. That is pretty far outside the "VC" range of funding since their funds want to be 'done' in 10 years, not just "almost approved for considering to build." And the thorium folks, much as I love them, do themselves a disservice by not addressing the fuel cycle problem. If a uranium 'water' reactor leaks the radio-isotopes in the water decay rapidly, and are easily blocked by modest shielding. So that steam that escapes into the big containment dome? Well its radioactive initially but a couple of days later its not. This is not true is U233, a necessary byproduct of a thorium reactor fuel cell and present in the molten sodium leaks out. As sodium reacts violently with water, and molten sodium leak will cause an explosion and disperse highly dangerous, and difficult to shield U233 contaminated with U233 [1] So when a thorium reactor does have a problem, it will be very serious very quickly. Not a lot of understanding on how to protect against that yet. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-232#Uranium-232 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-232#Uranium-232
- pkrein 14y ago
  hold up -- you are confusing molten salt with liquid metal. molten salt reactors do not contain liquid sodium metal. in a molten salt the sodium is chemically bound to Fluorine or Chlorine, etc. the explosive fire danger you're talking about applies to "Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors" which is a different animal altogether. but yes, those are scary! and have had lots of accidents/fires in the past.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- uvdiv 14y ago
  You're confusing molten-salt reactors with molten-sodium reactors (different beasts). Molten fluoride is also reactive with water (hydrogen fluoride anyone?), but often MSR proposals don't involve water (they go for helium or CO2 gas turbines), and the ones that do separate steam far away from nuclear components, through intermediate coolant loops. Sodium reactors do the same thing. The risks really are manageable (in theory). Radioactivity is dominated by short-lived fission products, not U-233/U-232 and company. U-232 is very radioactive, yes; but in a nuclear reactor, there exist vicious things far more radioactive than that. (Note that U-232 is a trace contaminant, but fission products are present in bulk amounts. U-232 is highlighted only because it's impossible to separate from U-233, a point of theoretical (and meaningless) debate involving nuclear weapons. Otherwise it's unimportant.)
rayiner 14y ago
The basic problem that nuclear faces is that it's too dangerous to allow private companies to develop. Normally, having private companies engage in dangerous activity is not itself a problem. Since the legal system (theoretically) forces the company to bear the cost of any harms, the company has an incentive to take precautionary measures proportional to the risk-weighted potential harm. When you get to situations like Fukushima or BP, this breaks down. The real economic cost of a nuclear disaster can stretch into the trillion dollar range when you factor in not just cleanup and direct compensation, but disruption of life.[1] A private company could never compensate the public for such costs, and as a result a private company has no incentive to exercise caution proportional to the risk weighted cost, but rather only an incentive to exercise care proportional to the risk weighted expected payout. Of course the flip side of this is that the potential cost of disaster being so high blinds people to the fact that the probability of disaster is low. So the regulation tends towards more stifling than warranted. [1] What's the real cost of something like Fukushima? Is it just the cost of cleanup? The cost of paying for destroyed houses? The cost of paying the families of people killed? It is partly that, but it's a lot more in fact. Consider: what would I have to pay you to get you to live in an emergency shelter for six months? Disaster payouts almost never compensate for cleanup and health bills much less for disruption to one's routine, but in economic terms it's a very real cost.
- lostlogin 14y ago
  Good post - disturbingly close to the old chestnut: privatise your profits, socialise your costs.
- fulafel 14y ago
  > What's the real cost of something like Fukushima? The PR: West denouncing nuclear and retiring nuclear capacity ahead of time -> flight of investment from nuclear -> replace with coal/peat/etc -> climate badness.
- KitemanSA 14y ago
  "What's the real cost of something like Fukushima?" Maybe the better question is what will the purveyors of fear, uncertainty and doubt cause the price to be. The cost will be negligible, at least compared to the local portion of the general quake and tsunami cost. But FUD will make the government do stupid things, like what they have already done regarding the allowable radioactivity level in food. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But that is the purveyor's purpose.
yk 14y ago
Capitalism embiggens itself via creative destruction. A concept that does not combine well with nuclear reactors.

pkrein 14y ago

from what i understand http://flibeenergy.com/ http://flibeenergy.com/ shopped around at VCs in Silicon Valley, but apparently it didn't work out? i think the trick is to find an angle into the business that doesn't involve govt approval up front. some aspect of the problem that can be solved to show momentum, without hitting regulations. maybe the chemistry side of things?

krschultz 14y ago
SpaceX had a lot of the same challenges but the first money making contract - flights to ISS - was only about 5-10 years out. NASA also paid them when they hit certain design milestones toward that contract. I would think that the best path forward on this would be for the DOE to setup similar milestones w/ large cash rewards. Private companies compete on getting to those milestones with oversight by the appropriate regulatory bodies. Then once through the initial milestones the company could actually build a small scale reactor, make money on it, then build a large scale and really make some money. Not saying it is going to happen, but that is MORE likely to happen than the DOE building this kind of reactor themselves.
- apendleton 14y ago
  SpaceX also had the advantage of a very wealthy founder willing to pour lots of his own money into the project. This certainly wasn't enough to finance the entire development up until the first ISS flight, but it did allow him to hire a bunch of hotshot engineers right from the get-go, and probably establish a degree of legitimacy that made attracting more funds, government contracts, etc., somewhat easier. I'd wager that if Elon Musk had decided to fund LFTRs instead of rockets, we'd already have a prototype.
thingification 14y ago
I don't know whether they shopped around VCs, but they have said that they aim to sell to the US army. The army has a well-publicised and pressing need for portable compact power sources in places like Iraq. They have also indicated that they would like to produce medical isotopes as a first step. However, the destruction of the US U 233 reserves by the US government may put a stop to that (if it isn't halted -- which seems unlikely, due to lack of interest). The civilian nuclear industry has regulatory lead times measured in decades, and has a mindset heavily tied to the risks posed by solid-fueled reactors. For that reason, the military may in fact be the only opportunity for a company to develop liquid fueled reactors.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Reactor designs are licensed by the NRC, new reactor designs require quite a long review process (as people really have a lot of "What if a ... happened?" questions that need answers) So funding a new reactor design is a multi-decade process. That is pretty far outside the "VC" range of funding since their funds want to be 'done' in 10 years, not just "almost approved for considering to build." And the thorium folks, much as I love them, do themselves a disservice by not addressing the fuel cycle problem. If a uranium 'water' reactor leaks the radio-isotopes in the water decay rapidly, and are easily blocked by modest shielding. So that steam that escapes into the big containment dome? Well its radioactive initially but a couple of days later its not. This is not true is U233, a necessary byproduct of a thorium reactor fuel cell and present in the molten sodium leaks out. As sodium reacts violently with water, and molten sodium leak will cause an explosion and disperse highly dangerous, and difficult to shield U233 contaminated with U233 [1] So when a thorium reactor does have a problem, it will be very serious very quickly. Not a lot of understanding on how to protect against that yet. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-232#Uranium-232 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-232#Uranium-232

pkrein 14y ago
hold up -- you are confusing molten salt with liquid metal. molten salt reactors do not contain liquid sodium metal. in a molten salt the sodium is chemically bound to Fluorine or Chlorine, etc. the explosive fire danger you're talking about applies to "Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors" which is a different animal altogether. but yes, those are scary! and have had lots of accidents/fires in the past.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
uvdiv 14y ago
You're confusing molten-salt reactors with molten-sodium reactors (different beasts). Molten fluoride is also reactive with water (hydrogen fluoride anyone?), but often MSR proposals don't involve water (they go for helium or CO2 gas turbines), and the ones that do separate steam far away from nuclear components, through intermediate coolant loops. Sodium reactors do the same thing. The risks really are manageable (in theory). Radioactivity is dominated by short-lived fission products, not U-233/U-232 and company. U-232 is very radioactive, yes; but in a nuclear reactor, there exist vicious things far more radioactive than that. (Note that U-232 is a trace contaminant, but fission products are present in bulk amounts. U-232 is highlighted only because it's impossible to separate from U-233, a point of theoretical (and meaningless) debate involving nuclear weapons. Otherwise it's unimportant.)

rayiner 14y ago

The basic problem that nuclear faces is that it's too dangerous to allow private companies to develop. Normally, having private companies engage in dangerous activity is not itself a problem. Since the legal system (theoretically) forces the company to bear the cost of any harms, the company has an incentive to take precautionary measures proportional to the risk-weighted potential harm. When you get to situations like Fukushima or BP, this breaks down. The real economic cost of a nuclear disaster can stretch into the trillion dollar range when you factor in not just cleanup and direct compensation, but disruption of life.[1] A private company could never compensate the public for such costs, and as a result a private company has no incentive to exercise caution proportional to the risk weighted cost, but rather only an incentive to exercise care proportional to the risk weighted expected payout. Of course the flip side of this is that the potential cost of disaster being so high blinds people to the fact that the probability of disaster is low. So the regulation tends towards more stifling than warranted. [1] What's the real cost of something like Fukushima? Is it just the cost of cleanup? The cost of paying for destroyed houses? The cost of paying the families of people killed? It is partly that, but it's a lot more in fact. Consider: what would I have to pay you to get you to live in an emergency shelter for six months? Disaster payouts almost never compensate for cleanup and health bills much less for disruption to one's routine, but in economic terms it's a very real cost.

lostlogin 14y ago
Good post - disturbingly close to the old chestnut: privatise your profits, socialise your costs.
fulafel 14y ago
> What's the real cost of something like Fukushima? The PR: West denouncing nuclear and retiring nuclear capacity ahead of time -> flight of investment from nuclear -> replace with coal/peat/etc -> climate badness.
KitemanSA 14y ago
"What's the real cost of something like Fukushima?" Maybe the better question is what will the purveyors of fear, uncertainty and doubt cause the price to be. The cost will be negligible, at least compared to the local portion of the general quake and tsunami cost. But FUD will make the government do stupid things, like what they have already done regarding the allowable radioactivity level in food. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But that is the purveyor's purpose.

yk 14y ago

Capitalism embiggens itself via creative destruction. A concept that does not combine well with nuclear reactors.