Bill Gates-backed nuclear contender Terra Power aims to build dozens of UK reactors::A Bill Gates-backed clean energy player is hoping to build dozens of nuclear reactors in the UK and will compete with global rivals.
No matter how you think about nuclear power in general, it will not be of any substantial help against climate change.
It’s expensive and takes forever to build. Even the optimistic projections of the vendors are well above what wind and solar deliver right now.
Nuclear power is just a tech bro pipe dream. Nobody needs it. It’s just prestige.
Really?
The country that has extremely old reactors, that need to shut down, because the rivers got too hot from the cooling water?
The country that spend billions on building a single new reactor?
The goal of several of these new companies is to build small modular plants that are cookie cutter instead of individual boutique designs. That should bring cost down substantially.
It’s the opposite. Nuclear plants were built as large as possible because that was the only way that made any kind of financial sense. SMRs are a waste of money.
It might have been why in the past, but the issues right now with building new plants is getting a design through production that can survive the review process. Costs come down on the second plant because you have a design you can clone rather than developing it from scratch.
There are already several uses by several countries in using miniature nuclear power plants. This is just an attempt to make it more available to everyone.
The Westinghouse AP1000 was a modular design approved in 2004. The US started building one in 2010 and just finished this year (well, it’s not actually finished yet, but the first reactor is now online).
I think China was the only country to build one in less than a decade - and it’s much easier to perform public works when you’re a authoritarian government who doesn’t have to deal with public or environmental concerns.
Well, then show me any viable concept. Just one. Not an “experimental protoype”. An actual concept, that is even roughly comparable in cost to currently deployed systems.
Hi, I’m a physicist who believes that nuclear power is the most realistic option of moving ourselves off fossil fuels, without the astronomical cost and untested technology that would be required in order to create a majority intermittent grid.
I do also have strong feelings about crypto, mostly about how much of a incredible waste of resources it is and how disgusting it is that the obvious scam nature of most of it hasnt been clamped down on by governments
