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U.S. Passes Pro-Nuclear Bill

TheHappyVampire

Well-known member
Trump Signs Legislation to Promote Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technology
The Trump administration has made shoring up existing nuclear power plants a key — and controversial — component of its energy agenda. But it's also looking ahead to the next generation of nuclear reactor technology.

On Friday, President Trump signed the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA), which passed earlier last month with bipartisan support. The bill is expected to speed up the development of advanced reactors in the U.S. by eliminating several of the financial and technological barriers standing in the way of nuclear innovation.

"There are some truly transformative advanced nuclear technologies being developed in America right now, and this bill just reinforces this administration's continued efforts to revitalize the nuclear industry," said Ed McGinnis, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy, in a statement.
President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill called the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA). This is to help speed up the development of advanced reactors in the United States by cutting several financial and technological barriers.
 
Well, for once I can't say that Trump is on the wrong side here. It's a clean bill. I read the full text. Good for him.
 
Yay I guess, maybe we this can open the possibility of Thorium reactors and meltdown proof models to start dispelling the myth that Nuclear= Bad!
 
Yay I guess, maybe we this can open the possibility of Thorium reactors and meltdown proof models to start dispelling the myth that Nuclear= Bad!
Chances are that the nuclear industry sits on their collective hands and continues to make use of pressurized water reactors, rather than moving to molten salt reactors...
 
Chances are that the nuclear industry sits on their collective hands and continues to make use of pressurized water reactors, rather than moving to molten salt reactors...

Nah, molten salt should be cheaper to make.
 
Nah, molten salt should be cheaper to make.
Why use a newer safer system, when they can make more money with the old system?
 
Make America Fresh Again?
More like French Again. Given who is fully nuke-powered IRL. :)
Why use a newer safer system, when they can make more money with the old system?
Maybe because molten salt reactors are definitely NOT like in the popular mechanics articles. There are dozens of different concepts, each with advantages and drawbacks, while the image people have of them online are of an ideal reactor with all the advantages and none of the issues. And, of course, most of these reactors faces tons of unsolved engineering issues too.
 
Why use a newer safer system, when they can make more money with the old system?
Because old systems get old. They break down, and eventually become far more expensive to keep going then moving to newer, more efficient, and easier-to-maintain technologies.
 
Chances are that the nuclear industry sits on their collective hands and continues to make use of pressurized water reactors, rather than moving to molten salt reactors...
Molten Salt reactors have this tiny problem of... oh... requiring that the reactor AND pumps stays on all the time no matter what. If you cut off the pumps, all you'll get is literally pipes that are solid radioactive metallic salts. No one right now has gotten an effective molten salt reactor around, and the Russians seriously fucked theirs with the Akula class SSNs (to the point that they have to literally hook the ships up to the base's power grid just so they don't have a significant portion of their ship a giant block of solid radioactive metallic salts). There are various prototype designs out there but right now there is simply no money in investing in a new reactor design, let alone something as insanely radical as a molten salt reactor design.
Nah, molten salt should be cheaper to make.
Yeah... no. Molten salt reactors are not cheaper to make and right now they're astronomical to maintain. For example, the Akula class SSNs used a molten salt reactor design... and they were the equivalent of hanger queens for submarines. The design was so radical, there weren't enough engineers to keep it running safely. Then there is the fact that the pumps have to be active 24/7 lest the entire system becomes one giant block of radioactive solid metallic salts (if you think removing your more stereotypical reactor was bad enough, a molten salt reactor that has become solid is a whole lot worse), and at port that required the sub to literally be hooked up to the base's power grid.

The few MSRs that are being prototyped are costly things that have extraordinary maintenance costs. Yeah...
 
Molten Salt reactors have this tiny problem of... oh... requiring that the reactor AND pumps stays on all the time no matter what. If you cut off the pumps, all you'll get is literally pipes that are solid radioactive metallic salts. No one right now has gotten an effective molten salt reactor around, and the Russians seriously fucked theirs with the Akula class SSNs (to the point that they have to literally hook the ships up to the base's power grid just so they don't have a significant portion of their ship a giant block of solid radioactive metallic salts). There are various prototype designs out there but right now there is simply no money in investing in a new reactor design, let alone something as insanely radical as a molten salt reactor design.

Yeah... no. Molten salt reactors are not cheaper to make and right now they're astronomical to maintain. For example, the Akula class SSNs used a molten salt reactor design... and they were the equivalent of hanger queens for submarines. The design was so radical, there weren't enough engineers to keep it running safely. Then there is the fact that the pumps have to be active 24/7 lest the entire system becomes one giant block of radioactive solid metallic salts (if you think removing your more stereotypical reactor was bad enough, a molten salt reactor that has become solid is a whole lot worse), and at port that required the sub to literally be hooked up to the base's power grid.

The few MSRs that are being prototyped are costly things that have extraordinary maintenance costs. Yeah...
1) It's the Alfa class submarine.
2) They aren't using a molten salt reactor but a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-cooled_fast_reactor
 
... 1) there are plenty of submarines in the old Soviet navy that I occasionally get them mixed up... 2), isn't a Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor more or less a molten salt reactor but with lead instead of molten Uranium-salts?
No, not really. It's a pretty different category of beast.
 
... So, who wants a ship girl story callled "Hanger queens" about ships that are too expensive to go to war?
 
... So, who wants a ship girl story callled "Hanger queens" about ships that are too expensive to go to war?
Actually, despite the setbacks, Alfas were pretty decent. Problem was that it took a crack crew to even get it to decent from what I can understand.
 
Actually, despite the setbacks, Alfas were pretty decent. Problem was that it took a crack crew to even get it to decent from what I can understand.
They were more like terrifying for NATO hunter/killers who'd have to come near the Bastion. Alfa could go faster and deeper than anyone else, by very far, and it pointed towards NATO subs by other assets, they were almost untoucheable by them. Thus the Mark 48 and Spearfish torpedoes designed as counters to it.
 
They were more like terrifying for NATO hunter/killers who'd have to come near the Bastion. Alfa could go faster and deeper than anyone else, by very far, and it pointed towards NATO subs by other assets, they were almost untoucheable by them. Thus the Mark 48 and Spearfish torpedoes designed as counters to it.

Effective counters too.
 
Nuclear stuff is outdated and barbaric.
 
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