News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by hypeatei on Monday October 14, 2024 @03:31PM (#41841013)
Does nuclear fission avoid the issue of meltdowns? Genuinely curious. The only downside I see to nuclear power is geopolitics/war (like we're seeing in Ukraine) so we don't cause even bigger catastrophes due to instability.
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by bigfudge on Monday October 14, 2024 @04:20PM (#41841500)
Did you mean to say fusion? In which case yes.
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by ignoramous on Monday October 14, 2024 @03:50PM (#41841189)
> so we don't cause even bigger catastrophes due to instability

That isn't the only worry. If the fuel is smuggled out... https://spectrum.ieee.org/high-assay-low-enriched-uranium

Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by petre on Monday October 14, 2024 @03:50PM (#41841185)
There are designs which avoid meltdowns, yes. Because the fuel is already molten. Like FliBe. It has a safety plug which if melts, the fuel flows in a contained reservoir and solidifies.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLiBe

Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by fwip on Monday October 14, 2024 @03:41PM (#41841098)
Nuclear fission is the reaction that has had meltdowns. There are fission technologies/strategies that are supposed to be meltdown-proof, but I do not know the science well enough to say whether that is true.
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by Moldoteck on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @05:01AM (#41846523)
that's kinda true but not yet commercially deployed. The main idea is on overheat fuel expands and fission reaction is stopped/reduced due to higher distance
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by asdf000333 on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @06:55PM (#41853954)
Meltdowns are also not the only risk.
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by loeg on Monday October 14, 2024 @05:11PM (#41842077)
3rd and 4th gen fission reactor designs have many safeguards against meltdown, yes.
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors by Moldoteck on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @05:00AM (#41846512)
ap1000 would have withstanded fukushima. And plants are designed to withstand an impact with an airplane. So all in all, yes, pretty safe. Gen4 will be even better especially with fuel dilation designs