Grizlason June 08 2022 22:57:01
Good episode. This is basically the current state of nuclear technology. So without improvements it will not have much of an impact.
I am however, quite hopeful about future improvements. Given that the ocean contains 4 billion ton of uranium, we can surely use U235 for a couple of centuries without running out of earths resources, even if we increased nuclear 10 fold. If the price of uranium triples, I believe the increased efficiency of molten salt reactors will more than make up for it. Traditional reactors use only 6% of their assembly fuel, before reprocessing. MSRs can reach maybe 50-80%. MSRs also operate at much higher temperatures, allowing for better heat transfer and the possibility to sell the decay heat.
About 70% of the cost of traditional nuclear power plants are fixed. New modular molten salt reactors (Seaborg) could reduce this number dramatically.
Grizlas 25/07/2025 07:25 works with no issues in normal version of Firefox. I'm guessing you either did not do CTRL+F5 or are using some adblock plugin.
Norlander 25/07/2025 04:52 Use Firefox and it blocks all sorts of unwanted stuff of course.
Grizlas 24/07/2025 14:57 Using some ad-blocker? Try ctrl+F5
Norlander 24/07/2025 12:25 its mostly just grey for me...
Grizlas 24/07/2025 12:07 This banner is the best we've had so far.