Re:Nuclear fusion: it's time for a reality check
by pfdietz on Saturday February 01, 2025 @08:45AM
(#42898230)
I think you're getting cause and effect mixed up, a kind of cargo cult error.
You seem to think nuclear failed because we didn't go with breeder reactors. But the reality is the opposite: we didn't get breeder reactors because nuclear failed. The justification for breeder development was that uranium was going to run out real soon (with everyone building cheap-as-dirt nuclear power plants), and breeders would then have a big market as uranium prices rose.
But nuclear was too expensive, so the build out was aborted. Uranium has remained at a price level at which breeder reactors (or even reprocessing to make MOX fuel for burner reactors) cannot be justified. In the time scale of operation of any existing reactor, or any reactor we could build today, uranium is projected to remain cheap enough for this still to hold.
That even France has mothballed its breeder program, saying publicly there would be no market for such reactors before the second half of this century, should be evidence breeders weren't some sort of panacea for the problems of nuclear. They were a solution to a hypothetical problem that failed to arise.
You seem to think nuclear failed because we didn't go with breeder reactors. But the reality is the opposite: we didn't get breeder reactors because nuclear failed. The justification for breeder development was that uranium was going to run out real soon (with everyone building cheap-as-dirt nuclear power plants), and breeders would then have a big market as uranium prices rose.
But nuclear was too expensive, so the build out was aborted. Uranium has remained at a price level at which breeder reactors (or even reprocessing to make MOX fuel for burner reactors) cannot be justified. In the time scale of operation of any existing reactor, or any reactor we could build today, uranium is projected to remain cheap enough for this still to hold.
That even France has mothballed its breeder program, saying publicly there would be no market for such reactors before the second half of this century, should be evidence breeders weren't some sort of panacea for the problems of nuclear. They were a solution to a hypothetical problem that failed to arise.