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Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report (newatlas.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

142 comments fedilink hide all child comments

[T]he report's executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.

"The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs," says the report. "But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb."

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[+] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Wikipedia has a good discussion, if you don’t need technical detail. They’re fairly optimistic, but do note difficulties. It actually looks more positive than I expected, with the number of demonstration reactors in the last decade or so. Note: “demonstration”. I don’t think there’s anything actually blocking use of Thorium, but some unresolved issues for commercialization, plus it’s not clear the actual results are better, or that nuclear is any longer a good place to invest. It’s more of: at this point, why would you go down that road?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Sorry, can't find the stuff I read about it a while back when I was interested about it, or was it a YouTube video?

Anyway, here is what I remember: having the radioactive fuel as a liquid makes it easier to leak, and once that's happened, the environment damage will spread faster to ground water. Also sodium salt is liquid at high temperature, at which it will spontaneously catch fire in contact with oxygen (air), so any leak will cause a catastrophic fire, and this is what caused the demise of the French prototype "Projet Phénix" in the 70s.