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A comment on Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power. Parent comment

Re:Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power by adrianN on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @07:22AM (#16627547)
They could just build solar to run their aircons. It's a perfect match.
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Re:Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power by 3pt14159 on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @07:30AM (#16627578)
Cheaper at scale in the long run too. Short of some unforeseen breakthroughs in non-typical nuclear like thorium.
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Re:Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power by DennisP on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @08:59AM (#16628126)
It wouldn't be that unforeseen, there are a bunch of companies working on molten salt reactors and there don't appear to be any showstoppers. The main issue is getting regulators to wrap their heads around it, but Terrestrial Energy in Canada got through the first stage of regulatory approval last year [1], and ThorCon appears to be making good progress with Indonesia [2]. Moltex is pursuing licensing in Canada as well [3], and thinks it could have its first reactor online as early as 2026 [4]. Terrapower has been awarded $40M from the DOE for their work on a molten chloride fast reactor [5].

[1] https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/2017/11/terrestrial-energy...

[2] https://medium.com/@bobsoef/indonesia-is-preparing-to-go-nuc...

[3] http://moltexenergy.com/news/details.aspx?positionId=85

[4] http://moltexenergy.com/files/cms/7_Moltex_Energy_Press_Rele...

[5] http://terrapower.com/technologies/mcfr

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Re:Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power by 3pt14159 on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @10:32AM (#16628874)
I'm for guarded optimism here. The reality is that getting regulators to wrap their heads around it is a real cost. The public doesn't trust nuclear and these smaller ones don't produce medical isotopes, so regulators can't even fall back on saying grandma needs it. When the public says "why not solar?" the government should have a good answer. It makes sense in Canada (history of safe nuclear, large population base with knowledge in engineering, etc) but it doesn't make sense in Saudi Arabia short of nuclear arms capability.
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Re:Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Is Turning to Nuclear Power by DennisP on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @11:04AM (#16629153)
Regulation is a serious barrier in the U.S. but Canada is a lot more rational about new technologies.

Simple answer to "why not solar" is that we need power at night, and it's not clear that storage at large scale would be cost-competitive with molten salt reactors. (I think nuclear baseload with solar for extra daytime load makes a lot of sense, though.)

I once described molten salt reactors to a very anti-nuclear activist in the Green Party, and he said "hmm...that actually sounds pretty good."

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