It is a different solution than SMRs. It does not make cheap residential power, where about a third of the cost stack is transmission, a third distribution, and only a third is generating the power. I will be watching it, though.
It takes 4–5 years for a normal nuclear company to build a thermal reference plant because it takes a while to consolidate the concept design for the reactor. The business case, waste case, supply chain, and R&D timelines depend on the techno-strategic decisions by the technical team on which reactor technology concept they finalize. Most of the time, there are uncompromising tradeoffs from the business case that require the tech team to iterate on the concept design, which takes 2–3 years.
Subsequently, the prototype program (nuclear and non-nuclear) should have traceable objectives linking back to the licensing case of the consolidated reactor and plant design. Building fast is not the problem; building right is. Hope you are building right.
Amazing! Very curious how extensive this thermal prototype is - of course they are probably not sharing it for obvious reasons - it can go critical, but what about maintenance, fuel inspection/cycling etc? I work at a nuclear company and most of our testing revolves around that stuff. It has definitely proven to be more difficult than core/gas system design. At least to my eyes
It is a different solution than SMRs. It does not make cheap residential power, where about a third of the cost stack is transmission, a third distribution, and only a third is generating the power. I will be watching it, though.
It takes 4–5 years for a normal nuclear company to build a thermal reference plant because it takes a while to consolidate the concept design for the reactor. The business case, waste case, supply chain, and R&D timelines depend on the techno-strategic decisions by the technical team on which reactor technology concept they finalize. Most of the time, there are uncompromising tradeoffs from the business case that require the tech team to iterate on the concept design, which takes 2–3 years.
Subsequently, the prototype program (nuclear and non-nuclear) should have traceable objectives linking back to the licensing case of the consolidated reactor and plant design. Building fast is not the problem; building right is. Hope you are building right.
Amazing! Very curious how extensive this thermal prototype is - of course they are probably not sharing it for obvious reasons - it can go critical, but what about maintenance, fuel inspection/cycling etc? I work at a nuclear company and most of our testing revolves around that stuff. It has definitely proven to be more difficult than core/gas system design. At least to my eyes