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A comment on UPower (YC S14) Is Building Nuclear Batteries. Parent comment

Re:UPower (YC S14) Is Building Nuclear Batteries by ChuckMcM on Monday August 18, 2014 @11:40PM (#8195946)
This seems like an interesting technology, especially if you can keep the moving parts to a minimum. I did a bit of research on mineral extraction. Not surprisingly the more refined your minerals the more valuable they are, and building an on-site blast furnace to convert various forms of iron ore into pig iron would allow countries like Afghanistan extract more value out of their mineral deposits. The challenge is that without infrastructure the traditional solution is build a mine, build train tracks to the mine, and then transport raw ore from the mine to the processing facility (this is being done in some of China's western provinces). Primary issue of building a refinery is a reliable source of power. One key is unattended operation. Is that something you are planning for?
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Re:UPower (YC S14) Is Building Nuclear Batteries by donttrustatoms on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @12:03AM (#8195986)
Great assessment and distilled description. We have literally spoken to people from lithium mines to chromium mines to remote oil or copper mines and they have explained this same predicament of difficulty of reliable power on site.

As far as unattended: in sum, the technology allows it, but the regulatory structure may not be comfortable with it in the near term. It's not the deal breaker you might think in terms of economics. We are talking about more reliable power at multiples less with prices that don't require the complicated hedging and regular bulk purchases as oil and gas. Generally, we are looking at staffing structure similar to oil rigs- weeks on, weeks off. As regulators and public understand operation, we could transition to remote staff managing sites. Truth is that the technology shuts itself down in case of any bad event (see EBR for similar, really amazing) and there would be almost nothing for on site personnel to do, but there is a perceived safety blanket with having a warm body on site.

Does that answer your question?

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Re:UPower (YC S14) Is Building Nuclear Batteries by devicenull on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @02:36PM (#8198998)
EBR?
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