Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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
#22Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#23Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#24I'm so glad there are nuclear startups. There's so much to be done in this field. It's enormously tough to disrupt but licensing a design might be a start. Talent is extraordinarily hard to find for this. All the great engineers with domain experience are starting to retire. The ones that are left are extremely risk averse. You have to attempt to poach from GE or Westinghouse. I worked for Westinghouse for two years…
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#25I'm a bit scared that there might be "rockstar" nuclear engineers out there.
I'm not bashing all programmers, just ones who are part of the "rockstar" startup scene.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#26I'm so glad there are nuclear startups. There's so much to be done in this field. It's enormously tough to disrupt but licensing a design might be a start. Talent is extraordinarily hard to find for this. All the great engineers with domain experience are starting to retire. The ones that are left are extremely risk averse. You have to attempt to poach from GE or Westinghouse. I worked for Westinghouse for two years…
And why we have to use steel piping at 153atm and 300C?
The fact is that we are using a design that is totally obsolete and designed for creating nuclear bombs, not for giving us energy.
The good thing about startups is that they could think different, use creativity to innovate and invent new methods. Einstein was not very intelligent a la Von Newman, contrary to popular belief, but he was super creative.
Creativity is destroyed in academia.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#27Just cross the Atlantic, open a subsidiary in France. You will find there a lot of extremely qualified engineers for everything nuclear related.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#28I should just give up.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#29Not sure if the talent pool would fit the startup culture but the US Navy might be worth investigating. Or the Russian, British, or French navies.
Re: Think Hiring a Ruby Developer is Hard? Try Staffing a Nuclear Reactor Startup
#30I'm so glad there are nuclear startups. There's so much to be done in this field. It's enormously tough to disrupt but licensing a design might be a start. Talent is extraordinarily hard to find for this. All the great engineers with domain experience are starting to retire. The ones that are left are extremely risk averse. You have to attempt to poach from GE or Westinghouse. I worked for Westinghouse for two years…
"There are funny things that happen to steel piping at 2250 psi and 600 degrees Fahrenheit." And why we have to use steel piping at 153atm and 300C? The fact is that we are using a design that is totally obsolete and designed for creating nuclear bombs, not for giving us energy. The good thing about startups is that they could think different, use creativity to innovate and invent new methods. Einstein was not very i…
Two other types of plants you might be thinking of when taking bomb materials into account. The russian design for Chernobyl was meant to produce electricity and bomb fuel which is why it had a graphite moderator which creates a very high neutron flux.
The other one is the sodium cooled breeder reactor which we chose instead of the molten salt design discussed in the article. The sodium breeder was good at making plutonium but still was never designed to have that plutonium removed in any usable fashion. Sodium is a tricky substance it reacts with water violently. The french still have a plant or two going as do the Chinese but it's really not a stellar design.
Now, I agree about the temps and pressures being unnecessary. The reason for these is about efficiency of scale. In a power grid like America's where we need 1 gigawatt and greater plants, plus with licensing a plant being so difficult, you build the biggest baddest plant you can which can output the most power. This means you go with the highest temps and pressures while still being ultra safe to create a more power efficient reactor.
Smaller reactors which would be better for the power grids of the world. Like 250 mega watts would not need these extreme environments. There are some great designs for a back of trailer truck reactor which can just hook up to a coal plant's secondary systems (steam turbines and such).
The best part of nuclear startups is nuclear is not a 'if' question. It's a when. I just hope we can disrupt quickly enough to bring that sort of power production here sooner rather then later.