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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

#61

Post by ScotterC »

uvdiv wrote: post #60
ScotterC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on there buddy. All Western designed PWRs or BWRs (which is nearly all of them) are not designed to be yielding bombs. Their neutron flux is simply not high enough to give enough enrichment. 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 creat…

"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 powe…

Thanks for the citations.

Btw are you the same uvdiv that writes on capacity factor? Used to read that blog all the time when I was in industry. Always liked the number focus.

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

#62

Post by cmelbye »

Symmetry wrote: post #8
amalag wrote: 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.

Not to mention the fact that the Nuclear (uranium) fuel cycle is much more established than the more immature and unproven thorium fuel cycle is.

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

#63

Post by uvdiv »

The photo @11:30 wasn't identified correctly. She's talking about spent fuel, high-level waste ("very big problem"), but the photo slide is absolutely not that at all; it is stored depleted uranium hexafluoride, a byproduct of isotope enrichment. (The site is the USEC gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, Kentucky, USA). Comparatively benign chemical waste.

(Maybe I misunderstood, but the talk seemed to imply that spent fuel storage was being shown. It wasn't.)

http://g.co/maps/b9haq

http://www.usec.com/media/photo-gallery

http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/faq/storage/faq16.cfm

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

#66

Post by ylem »

achy wrote: post #58
ylem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought CANDU was acquired by a private company--do you foresee another Canadian research reactor after Chalk River?

It was, but the workforce was severely slashed, and (due to low market necessity) would have been moreso if not for a unionized work force.

That I wasn't aware of--how is Deep River holding up?

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

#67

Post by maaku »

jph wrote: post #22

Ninja rockstar wanted for lean startup in nuclear sector. Must know MVC framework (Matter/Valence/Controller), ATOM feeds, and the Ruby "split" method. Perks include free energy drinks.

Must have 10 years experience with Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactors.

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

#68

Post by Daniel_Newby »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #26
ScotterC wrote: post #10

I'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…

> Creativity is destroyed in academia.

Nah. Grant committees just don't fund its full expression.

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

#70

Post by wisty »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #50

I'm close with someone who was offered a position at a nuclear startup NuScale, that aims to manufacture cookie-cutter, modular nuclear reactors, where you scale the power plant by adding more reactors over time as your needs change, and ship the old spent ones off. As I understand it, part of the problem in hiring is that for a nuclear startup you really need experienced engineers as you go into producing working pr…

This is why I don't think nuclear power is the future. Renewable power can afford to be innovative. Nuclear power will never innovate as fast. Even if it's better than wind right now, you can't have people hack on it, or manufacture in the cheapest country (I hope), or have small countries regulate its use in a cost efficient way.

Of course, it's great for the countries who already have it up and running, and those countries should also look at the latest generations, and the next generation which are being designed (which should be better and safer in every way that the old ones which meltdown when a tsunami hits them).

I love asking pro-nuclear Australians which level of government (federal or state) should regulate nuclear power, and who should be the minister in charge.

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