Viewing profile — jddw

Buried, sealed, and guarded with armed former spec ops folks.

They are not poorly secured, and the material is not weaponizable. Not to mention they are not toxic sites, the waste is put into a block of metal that is completely passively cool…

That's why the reactor can use thorium! There are big benefits. But frankly all advanced reactors are cooled by natural forces so are immune to fuel overheating. The challenge is m…

First, the reactors are consuming the fuel while deployed, but no waste is stored at the sites. It is stored centrally so there are a few centralized sites that hold the waste for …

This is one of the great challenges nuclear has to overcome on paper. Most of these costs are based on absurd standards that have consistently been proven wrong. Fukushima's cleanu…

This reactor eats some of the waste, but UPower can eat all of the waste, including this reactor's waste.

Also, AGR fuel needs to be condensed or reprocessed shortly after discharge. It's great in a gas reactor, not so much in a spent fuel pool. That means much of the UK's discharged f…

So distribute fission and fusion, overcomes much of that. And distributed solar and wind needs backup which is usually fairly centralized. Unless you want to spend 3-5 times as muc…

This is completely false. First it is not dangerous to live in those zones, second this is a pretty accurate land comparison - http://www.thingsworsethannuclearpower.com/2012/03/us…

Interesting analogy and choice of words since UPower is building a solid state reactor.

Safe = reliable = high capacity factor = revenue. Look at the INPO and NRC ratings of plant safety and economic performance. They are directly correlated. So it's in every nuclear …

For over ten years the US nuclear fleet has maintained an average capacity factor of about 90%, and that is nearly 1/4 of the world's nuclear plants - http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-…

There's a lot of energy in those 112 tonnes, but you really need a fast reactor to burn it. Plutonium is a lot easier to tackle in a fast reactor than a thermal reactor. Also, UPow…

The UPower design is waste negative so it can convert the entire planet's spent nuclear fuel and depleted uranium stockpiles into enough energy to power the globe for about 500 yea…

There are neat ways to make sunlight into fuel, but it's about what form that energy takes. If it is a fuel that needs to be burned - in the case of sugars from photosynthesis - we…

You're right. It is also a common misconception that nuclear reactors cannot load follow, they can: http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/02/14/responding-to-system-de... One of the main …

Hey HN I'm Jake, one of the co-founders of UPower. Some good discussion here. I've posted a few responses below, happy to answer some questions here. Thanks!

Precisely right. Traditional utilities want something with a long operating track record, something hard for new designs to do off the bat. But going where the reactor is 5x cheape…

There are core designs for low enriched uranium loading, mixed thorium loading, and spent fuel loadings. Have to make sure a fuel design works before it's claimed to work.

Right, the goal is to start very small, and off grid. Then we scale and grow to grid size.

Yes it is fission like the article says.

Exactly right. Reactors are not attractive targets and this is very robust.

The concept is to start small to overcome cost and regulatory barriers more quickly and for less. And yes, we kick start using thorium with low enriched uranium or spent fuel to bu…