Looky here: new nuclear reactors being built in the USA

[makattak]

I would agree in a sane world. Completely and unreservedly agree. If we were living in a world of efficiency, logic and reason. Or even 'bare minimum competence'. We don't live in that kind of world. Our reactor lifespans, political process and judicial theatrics make for very very long uphill battles to get a commercial reactor running. Assuming we don't go Full Russian Retard when it comes to reactor design, one design with differing model types is 'better' in real world commercial operator terms. However, research reactors are surprisingly much easier to get licensed. But are intentionally capped from many useful things, including making money. Because unshockingly, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is about as pro-capitalism as Joseph Stalin.

So, I very much agree with you, but unfortunately our government sucks and we have too many stupid people with strong ideological opposition to science and engineering. At the moment, we do exactly what you say. "standardize to a few designs to better be able to compare risks and performance over time". In other words, virtually every reactor in the US is a one-off with no standardization. That's the real world results of what you recommend. Driving up costs and increasing construction by years or decades. Each is like a special and unique snowflake.

Unfortunately, with nuclear engineering, math and engineering isn't remotely as important as understanding the nuances of the stupidity of anti-nuclear groups like the government, hippies and morons. They each have their own differing aspects of blind ideology, anti-science bias, willful stupidity, entitlement behavior and general obnoxiousness. They seem similar, but at the microscopic level, it's an infinite fractal of stupidity.

That's great but... your ideas also only work in a sane world. My idea of 4 competing designs (there, we have a specific number) with updates/redesigns happening after a set number of years (I'll pick 20), has just as much chance of implementation as your own.

Which is, of course, zero.

[MechAg94]

That's great but... your ideas also only work in a sane world. My idea of 4 competing designs (there, we have a specific number) with updates/redesigns happening after a set number of years (I'll pick 20), has just as much chance of implementation as your own.

Which is, of course, zero.

Telling people what designs they can use doesn't sound like free market to me.  I am sure there is some way to incentivize that, but do you want a govt run nuke industry?

[RevDisk]

Why not Thorium.  From my understanding it processes (re-processes) itself into something rather harmless.

Tech doesn't exist yet. Well, it does but not in practical terms. There's also other disadvantages of using liquid fluoride thorium reactors.

You need to jumpstart thorium with fissile material (ie uranium) for initial start up. I understand that running thorium reactors can jumpstart other thorium reactors but not sure of the engineering involved.

Fluoride salt mixtures melt at around 600F or higher, depending on type. That's substantially above room temperature. So your coolant is solid at room temperature, which is more fun engineering.

There's proliferation concerns.

The coolant is toxic as hell. Beryllium poisoning is no joke. Alternatives exist, but again, more engineering required. Either way, you need an on-site chemical plant. Plus there are circumstances where fluoride loses its gentle and forgiving nature to become probably the most horrific stuff on the planet. Fluorine is poisonous to humans but fluoride is not.

Speaking of toxic, you want to store the fuel at above a 100C or you can risk fluorine gas and uranium hexafluoride.

That's great but... your ideas also only work in a sane world. My idea of 4 competing designs (there, we have a specific number) with updates/redesigns happening after a set number of years (I'll pick 20), has just as much chance of implementation as your own.

Which is, of course, zero.

Well, mine is based on France's real world. But yes, zero here in US.

Telling people what designs they can use doesn't sound like free market to me.  I am sure there is some way to incentivize that, but do you want a govt run nuke industry?

As far as I'm aware, there is no public utility in the US that is free market? I'm not familiar with any free market public utility in the entire world, actually, but I'm sure one exists... somewhere. Every single public utility uses government property and authority to exist. They ride on the back on government infrastructure (mostly roads, but also spectrum, easements, mandatory use, etc) in order to exist.

[AJ Dual]

Well, mine is based on France's real world. But yes, zero here in US.

Well, France also put a mine on a Greenpeace ship.

Talk about the need for a fundamental "sea change" in culture needed to really get nuclear going. 

[birdman]

Actually, in-situ breeder thorium tech has existed for a long...long...time.
(MSRE).

But rev is right, FLIBE sucks a$$.  But there are other salts that work...and flouride  salts aren't that bad...

MSR's are actually quite nice idea, better/just as good depending on what aspect IMHO than HTGR (which I have done a lot of work on), and way better than LMFBR.

As for thorium v uranium breeders...YMMV.  Thorium has less of a proliferation issue (namely because U232 is hot as ScarJo in leather...radiologically speaking...so "if they are dead, they can't make a bomb", but high burn up recyclable fuel from a uranium/plutonium cycle is almost impossible to make a bomb out of as well.

[RoadKingLarry]

S1B