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Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup

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Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup

#13
post #8
post #3

I thought thorium was the frontier in nuclear reactors.

Its the frontier of reactors-that-don't-explode. In the short term, our laws were written with light water reactors in mind, so anybody who wants to build a thorium reactor is going to have to build all the same expensive safety features that light water reactors need, plus the special metallurgy that molten salt reactors need. So basically it doesn't make sense until something changes.

> In the short term, our laws were written with light water reactors in mind, so anybody who wants to build a thorium reactor is going to have to build all the same expensive safety features that light water reactors need, plus the special metallurgy that molten salt reactors need.

It always annoys me that laws on safety requirements go into implementation details rather than stating the desired result. If the requirements simply said that "an independent audit must show that the safety exceeds the following thresholds: ...", safer technologies wouldn't incur the additional overhead you describe.

Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup

#16
post #5
post #3

I thought thorium was the frontier in nuclear reactors.

80% of the cost of nuclear energy is building the reactor. With around $500B worth of existing reactor infrastructure worldwide, which runs on Uranium, don't expect that to go away too soon.

I do not think they are simply attempting to replace existing reactors. I know in many countries governments have slowed down building reactors because of environmental concerns and costs. With the dwindling oil deposits and increasing energy need, safe and reliable nuclear reactors will be in high demand.

Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup

#18
post #4
post #2

Just cross the Atlantic, open a subsidiary in France. You will find there a lot of extremely qualified engineers for everything nuclear related.

Are they still using Francs for their units of reactivity, or did that get changed to Euros as well?

I'm not sure if this got modded down because people think I'm being facetious, but I'm seriously wondering what happened with that. For people who don't know, every country in the world, besides France, used "Dollars" for their units of reactivity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin#The_Dollar_unit_of...

France, on the other hand, used "Francs". Conveniently, the exchange rate was 1:1. I'd be surprised if they went and changed everything to Euro's now, but I haven't heard anything firsthand from French nuclear engineers.

Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup

#20
post #18
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they still using Francs for their units of reactivity, or did that get changed to Euros as well?

I'm not sure if this got modded down because people think I'm being facetious, but I'm seriously wondering what happened with that. For people who don't know, every country in the world, besides France, used "Dollars" for their units of reactivity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin#The_Dollar_unit_of... France, on the other hand, used "Francs". Conveniently, the exchange rate was 1:1. I'd be surprised if they…

How is your first comment relevant? Answer that, and you'll figure out why you were down voted.
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