3 ms·

Details are scarce on the website and in the articles I've found, but this seems similar to the 4S project Toshiba has been working on for over a decade [1,2].

Details are scarce on the website and in the articles I've found, but this seems similar to the 4S project Toshiba has been working on for over a decade [1,2]. Between the full-size plants they've built in Japan, and their acquisition of Westinghouse, Toshiba owns a respectable chunk of the nuclear engineering talent and experience on the planet. It doesn't seem to have gone much further [3] than the last time I read about it. What is UPower going to do differently? Nuclear engineering strikes me as one of those areas where exuberant inexperience and simulation prowess are not selling points. Youngsters work ok for software because (1) business inexperience can be offset by deep technical experience, and then rapid product iterations - both made possible by low entry barriers; and (2) screwing up (most) software has negligible negative externalities. Neither of those apply to nuclear engineering. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S [2] http://www.toshiba.com/tane/products_4s.jsp http://www.toshiba.com/tane/products_4s.jsp [3] http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/4s.html http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/4s.html

donttrustatoms 12y ago
The 4S is an order of magnitude larger, uses complicated flow, and has significant materials issues left to prove out. You're absolutely right- this is completely different than high school dropouts coding. How can a startup disrupt a large, established, stodgy industry? For example, I studied automotive engineering before MIT nuclear grad school and worked in marketing for almost every auto manufacturer: how did Tesla do what the Big guys didn't? It always starts with a simple, proven product and a niche market in need/willing to pay a premium. That being said our team does have wide ranging experience. Our CEO worked at GE on their revolutionary reactor they more or less shelved years ago and are now restarting. He served on the board of directors of the American Nuclear Society and has a PhD from MIT. He has seen and worked in the industry from operations of a real reactor to fuel sales to weapons design at national labs to naval reactor design to big industry since high school. The other good news is that the old dudes approve. We will probably soon publish our advisory board including retired regulatory high ups, industry folk who have successfully licensed, and retired high ranking army energy people. We are leveraging the decades of experience of fuel makers and materials experts... It's fun to see the gleam in their eye when they get excited to really build something. Ultimately the question of why hasn't this been done before and wasnt possible before has several clear answers, but no answers for those convinced only large, established, old companies can be in these big spaces ripe for disruption. Maybe they are right, maybe not us, maybe not now. It's not easy but it seems inevitable at some point.

donttrustatoms 12y ago

The 4S is an order of magnitude larger, uses complicated flow, and has significant materials issues left to prove out. You're absolutely right- this is completely different than high school dropouts coding. How can a startup disrupt a large, established, stodgy industry? For example, I studied automotive engineering before MIT nuclear grad school and worked in marketing for almost every auto manufacturer: how did Tesla do what the Big guys didn't? It always starts with a simple, proven product and a niche market in need/willing to pay a premium. That being said our team does have wide ranging experience. Our CEO worked at GE on their revolutionary reactor they more or less shelved years ago and are now restarting. He served on the board of directors of the American Nuclear Society and has a PhD from MIT. He has seen and worked in the industry from operations of a real reactor to fuel sales to weapons design at national labs to naval reactor design to big industry since high school. The other good news is that the old dudes approve. We will probably soon publish our advisory board including retired regulatory high ups, industry folk who have successfully licensed, and retired high ranking army energy people. We are leveraging the decades of experience of fuel makers and materials experts... It's fun to see the gleam in their eye when they get excited to really build something. Ultimately the question of why hasn't this been done before and wasnt possible before has several clear answers, but no answers for those convinced only large, established, old companies can be in these big spaces ripe for disruption. Maybe they are right, maybe not us, maybe not now. It's not easy but it seems inevitable at some point.