Euphoria is the way I felt when these announcements were made. At 86.75 years old, I'm hoping to still be around when the switches are thrown on HPC and even when the first R-R SMR goes live.
Part way through Chapter 8 of Going Nuclear. Highly recommended if you want the history, technologies and many other facets of a planet cleansed and running on nuclear power with minimal environmental impact 👏👏👏
Great to see another advocate in the media. I follow Decouple and Gordon McDowell on youtube and now I follow you Tim! The MSRE in Oakridge got my interest in nuclear going all over again.
I'm a lay person who grew up in the the mid 70s, so I recall a lot of the unease surrounding the nuclear incidents of the decades around that time, made real in the reactions of adults around me, but also in the material that we read in English classes - all very weapons apocalypse but definitely framed around accidents too.
My background is in imaging radiation, which is of course a very different flavour of risk, but it's useful to have that background in radiation protection and ALARA/P. The main counters I hear (typo edit) are of course costs and build time, even though most people fail to recognise that their appreciation of such things is because they're focussing on the long tails. Then there's waste, but it isn't really waste, more like in most cases, an unspent resource, created by our choice of reactor. We could consume it (transmute it sounds better than burning it in my mind) but I think I'm right in saying we don't mostly because of a political lack of will (and then an infrastructure thing too).
I'm very much looking forward to more of your content!
I'm totally with you on the recycling vs. burying front. I would looooove to see breeder reactor technology commercialised and deployed in my lifetime. I can dream!
Also, using nuclear to generate syn fuels is very interesting - the US navy experiment could help make tough to decarbonise transportation, almost carbon zero! Don Larson speaks passionately! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8zOHZINyG8
I read Zion's substack on LFSCOE - many folks haven't even heard of it, and it goes to show that the cost evangelising of renewables is often informed using faulty data.
Like many other topics that have passionate feelings surrounding them, the naysayers will likely shift the goal posts - but then I'm sure you've seen that over and over again. AmIright?
Euphoria is the way I felt when these announcements were made. At 86.75 years old, I'm hoping to still be around when the switches are thrown on HPC and even when the first R-R SMR goes live.
Part way through Chapter 8 of Going Nuclear. Highly recommended if you want the history, technologies and many other facets of a planet cleansed and running on nuclear power with minimal environmental impact 👏👏👏
Great to see another advocate in the media. I follow Decouple and Gordon McDowell on youtube and now I follow you Tim! The MSRE in Oakridge got my interest in nuclear going all over again.
I'm a lay person who grew up in the the mid 70s, so I recall a lot of the unease surrounding the nuclear incidents of the decades around that time, made real in the reactions of adults around me, but also in the material that we read in English classes - all very weapons apocalypse but definitely framed around accidents too.
My background is in imaging radiation, which is of course a very different flavour of risk, but it's useful to have that background in radiation protection and ALARA/P. The main counters I hear (typo edit) are of course costs and build time, even though most people fail to recognise that their appreciation of such things is because they're focussing on the long tails. Then there's waste, but it isn't really waste, more like in most cases, an unspent resource, created by our choice of reactor. We could consume it (transmute it sounds better than burning it in my mind) but I think I'm right in saying we don't mostly because of a political lack of will (and then an infrastructure thing too).
I'm very much looking forward to more of your content!
Glad you enjoyed my post :-) More to come…!
I'm totally with you on the recycling vs. burying front. I would looooove to see breeder reactor technology commercialised and deployed in my lifetime. I can dream!
It's only waste if we waste it.
That would be great.
Also, using nuclear to generate syn fuels is very interesting - the US navy experiment could help make tough to decarbonise transportation, almost carbon zero! Don Larson speaks passionately! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8zOHZINyG8
I read Zion's substack on LFSCOE - many folks haven't even heard of it, and it goes to show that the cost evangelising of renewables is often informed using faulty data.
https://zionlights.substack.com/p/lfscoe-is-the-new-metric-in-town
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035
Like many other topics that have passionate feelings surrounding them, the naysayers will likely shift the goal posts - but then I'm sure you've seen that over and over again. AmIright?