Viewing profile — donttrustatoms

I edited the above comment instead of replying here (whoops). I realized that you thought the structure was glass. No wonder. It's not, it's steel panels. Modular construction. The…

Haha not really. :) I was pretty much laughing at myself, responding to the commenter's idea that Oklo leadership shouldn't be spending cycles on building parameters with architect…

Thanks for the followup as well. I'll just respond on a couple of the points: - you don't see these detailed core schematics with analyses because in our design they are designated…

I can't say what kinds of security analyses we had to do to meet regulatory requirements, because there's a host of things you have to do to even know what security requirements th…

You're exactly right here, and I'd say this is well put in several areas. I'll add that supercritical CO2 sounds like science fiction to people, but it's actually been pretty well …

It's a good thing then that we analyzed to such extreme events as completely losing everything above ground, whether due to an avalanche, a tornado, an earthquake, etc, etc. :) The…

Hey Gloriana, I'm sure PR experts would say I'm probably not making a good decision responding here, and I haven't even had anything to drink, but I'll take a stab at sharing a bit…

Fair point, but when we examined just having everything underground, it was more expensive actually. Once you consider operational realities in a remote environment (especially in …

It would seem that both could be possible, but you're the expert here. ;) We didn't have to spend much time or money on an actually nice looking design, and the a-frame has a lot o…

It's a good conjecture, Paul. One might assume that low probability events were a major issue. With a design that is first of a kind, and given that the proven inherent safety char…

NuScale will, after about 15 years of engagement, receive a design certification later in 2022. After that- they will still need to apply with a combined license application like O…

I'm the cofounder of Oklo. Thanks for submitting this to HN! Feel free to AMA. :)

I'm the cofounder of Oklo. Thanks for submitting this to HN! Feel free to AMA.

"Fast reactors have always had this potential problem" - Not really. Check out the dramatic experiments at EBR-II (fast reactor) demonstrating unprotected loss of coolant at full p…

The link clearly states that this is the MCFR - Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. I think the confusion may lie in that people equate fast reactor with sodium. It's a fast MSR.

Oklo.com. You can sign up for the mailing list there, for updates once info goes live.

Massive batteries is an idiotic idea, as you said. Which is why the constant and large and instantaneous fluctuations from solar and wind are smoothed largely by natural gas. Recom…

Ha ha. Wrong. Actually the biggest demand is remote communities currently burning lots and lots of diesel. Military is way, way too slow moving.

Solar is much cheaper and wind was already cheap, however the question, for both carbon and cost, is what is the price of the renewable intermittents with storage and backup. Batte…

Good question, and believe it or not there have been small reactor concepts that failed for not considering that exact point. Ours is designed to live in essentially a spent fuel c…

The short answer is yes. We see this as our Tesla roadster (well designed niche product for a market willing to pay, in this case however, desperately in need for a solution that d…

That makes sense given those numbers tabulated, but the real question is cost of solar plus backup or storage. One means nothing without the other in terms of both cost and carbon.…