The “electricity” trains are going in different directions in the United States and China.
The United States pursues intermittent and unreliable generated electricity from wind and solar that CANNOT support the continuous and uninterruptible electricity demanded by hospitals, airports, and telecommunications.
China is pursuing nuclear generated electricity (38 NEW nuclear reactors) that are emissions free, continuous, reliable, and affordable electricity to support ALL infrastructures.
True but a bit off topic. The topic on the table is not wind/solar. Pro-nukes spend way too much time bashing wind/solar, when they should be asking why nuclear is so expensive in the West. The topic on the table is the direction of US nuclear policy.
The big water cooled reactor is not the reason nuclear power is prohibitively expensive in the West. The whole idea that you can make an end run around the regulatory system by switching technologies should be obvious nonsense. This deflection is keeping us from confronting the two elephants in the room: an omnipotent, auto-genocidally myopic regulatory regime based on a bogus fear, and an out of control tort system, that will monetize that fear.
You can't solve a problem unless you correctly identify its cause. This whole SMR thing is based on willfully avoiding doing just that.
Is it even true? The Chinese are also building enormous amounts of solar. They’re doing energy everything all at once, at full throttle, which seems like a great idea (apart from, alas, including coal).
Ronald, I don't think that's accurate at all. China is "all in" on energy in general, they are deploying solar just as enthusiastically as nuclear, if not more.
You say you can’t do an end-run around the strangling regulatory system by changing technologies… from my seat here in Canada, it almost appears that that’s what the Trump administration wants to do? Like the DOE licensing pathway for experimental reactors, and the very strong new direction to the NRC, the elimination of ALARA as a principle, and so on, primarily focused on Gen-IV reactors. X-Energy Long Mott doesn’t have a containment building! (Since the TRISO fuel is considered functional containment.)
There’s a principle in big organizations like governments or giant companies that sometimes if a system is broken and you can’t reform it, then the easiest way to fix things is to build a new system, start running things through that new system, and then when the new one has proven its worth, let the old one wither, and then the new one just *is* the system. (Carney is doing this with defence procurement here.)
What if they’re doing exactly what you’re proposing, it’s just they’re building the new system before they abolish the old NRC?
A license to start to construct a building is not an approval of the design, but thanks for the correction. Why should a regualtor even care that you are constructing a building?
As to your last point, the GKN has speculated that is just what they are thinking in Part 57. The repetitive use of the ambivalent adjective "comparable". The strange, elastic heavy metal metric. https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/part-57-the-nuscale-reg
But if so, it's not going to work. There is no "new system". It's the same old system. The regulator still has autocratic control and his incentives have not changed. LNT still reigns. A big release is still intolerable. Nuclear safety is still our overriding priority.
A "new system" will require we view radiation harm realistically. That start's with replacing LNT. The fact that we haven't been able to do that under an administration that is prepared to take political risks that would be unthinkable for almost all American politician should tell you everything you need to know.
TerraPower received its construction permit on March 4 for the Natrium to be built in Wyoming. They started construction on March 23 (according to their website). Per the press release:
"Kemmerer, Wyo. – April 23, 2026 – TerraPower, a nuclear innovation company, today, announced the official start of construction on its flagship Natrium® plant1, Kemmerer Unit 1. Kemmerer Unit 1 is on track to be the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States."
It is somewhat disappointing the lack of actual construction going on. On a recent episode of Decouple they were discussing the ABWRs at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 & 7. Took almost a decade from initial design to start of construction. But during that decade they were able to plan the construction so well it took less than 4 years for a FOAK. I know it is naive to assume Americans are just doing a lot of up front planning so the construction goes really well but I can still hope.
One fun fact I learned this week was the day Monticello got its construction permit they started construction that day.
TerraPower has been at it since at least 2008. That's 18 years. Almost the time between WWI and WW2. During those two decades, thanks to Bill and a few of his closest buddies, they've always had plenty of money. They are still years away from producing a watt of electricity. We don't know how many years. We don't know what the electricity will cost. And the fact that they have a permit to construct a building shows how well things are going. That the Rod Adams school of positive thinking.
Meanwhile we've banned the Koreans from exporting the one real semi-success story that we have over that period. We've got to stop kidding ourselves. Things are going badly.
Obviously, you are skeptical of Trump's plan to have ten new light water reactors under construction by 2030. It is also clear from another post that you are not a fan of the Westinghouse AP1000's which Trump is planning on building Can you elaborate on these issues.
I try to stay away from commenting on specific designs. It's not just the ThorCon conflict of interest. Far more importantly, I want 1000 flowers to bloom, in a fiercely competitive, no barriers to entry, no subsidy garden. But when the taxpayer is being ripped, I have made exceptions to that rule. NuScale is a case in point.
The AP1000 is a cramped, almost unmaintainable design. The piping is undersized. The AP1000 is a scale up of the AP600. Somehow Westinghouse increased the power 67% without increasing the diameter of the containment. It costs over $15,000/kW. It's not walkaway safe. The system or the operator has to fire off a bunch a squib valves to "realign" the piping to start the decay heat cooling process, and those untestable valves better work. Pls see
Jack - the new nuclear golden age has also been golden for some exceptional engineers, technicians, project managers, welders, fabricators, greybeards who've spent a whole career NOT building anything they've designed and young, hungry nuclear energy enthusiasts who have chosen what has proven to be a pretty exciting and rewarding career path so far.
Sure, initial criticality test and demonstration units are not power plants. But that is a stage that every new power plant has to pass through before producing real power.
Toy is a rather dismissive term for demonstration systems that can readily have a heat conversion system attached once early testing has been completed and carefully documented. At least one of the test units that you mention has solid plans to be producing rated power within about 6 months after initial criticality. Several are demonstrated every day that the new rules and approval philosophies are making it possible to move through milestones at a pace that seemed inconceivable just a year ago.
I have never given up on America or its people - whether they are working in the private sector or serving in government. Sure, we go through hard times and we have experienced challenges often imposed by ourselves - aka our elected representatives - but we eventually approach a reasonable condition.
I'll be one of those who are issuing self-congratulatory pronouncements. We are making tangible progress with real hardware often manufactured in America by Americans.
Of course you'd be congratulating yourself. You're part of the system, especially now that you're into the venture capitalism scene in new nuclear. Game theory demands that you won't acknowledge structural and systematic problems, that'd be self-destructive.
The irony is that toxic positivity fixes nothing and indeed, allows the main problems to endure and spiral further out of control. The only way to really fix a problem is to start to acknowledge there is one. The present system is very very bad across the board. Cheerleading every bit of insignificant progress made within a bad system is a guarantee that nuclear power will always be a minority player in the energy scape.
A.C. I've spent the past 30 years helping to change the former system. Please reread my post - the system has been dramatically change during the past half a dozen years with a massive acceleration in the rate of change during the past year.
If you haven't noticed that change you are simply not paying attention.
The proof of the pudding is in the making. The last 30 years has baked turds. And recently it has gotten so bad that even the turds can't get beyond that paper stage.
Vogtle and VC Summer were approved nearly 2 decades ago under a very different regime. In fact, Greg Jaczko, a professional antinuclear activist was the Chair of the NRC at the time. They had many onerous requirements and regulators who were trained to believe it wasn't their job to enable new nuclear.
You continue to prove to me that you are not paying any attention to the events and decisions that have been made in the past 5 years or so.
Cool it. Rod focuses on inputs. Look at all the money (much of it ours) that is flowing into the hands of the promoters. Look at all the fun a bunch of bright young people are having rehashing 60 year old ideas which have a history of failure. From that viewpoint, things are going great.
AC and others focus on outputs. How much electricity are you producing? How much does it cost? From that point of view, things are not going well at all.
Jack - You're correct that I am focused on the inputs. I learned long ago that reaching hard goals requires putting in the work, often at tasks that bore or frustrate others. Inputs are sometimes all you can really control.
If you want to become a star football player, you can't make a habit of taking your ball and going home when others don't want to change the rules to your liking.
If your hero is Mark Spitz and you dream of olympic gold, you need to input thousands of meters per day in the water for years. You have a tiny chance of achieving the dream, but there are many other benefits along the way.
If you want to be able to show off an exciting tumbling run during half time at a high school football game that includes a couple of back handsprings and ends with back tuck that you also can do from a standing start, you might want to start with forward somersaults when you are 5 or 6.
If you want to graduate from an elite university, get into a well-respected graduate program and complete an advanced degree, you might want to invest a few hours every day doing your homework and working hard at the best jobs you can find so you can pay the freight.
You aren't so correct with your characterization of the people having fun modernizing 60 year old ideas - I can testify that there are a lot of people my age and older having just as much fun as the "bright young people."
For those who don't know me, my oldest granddaughter is 16. My beard is almost completely grey.
Yes, I focus on inputs as a key ingredient in achieving desired outputs.
Spot on. Jack is one of the exceptional people willing to point out that the new nuclear emperor has no clothes.
The insidious part is it's all well meant and everyone is just playing by the rules. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it would seem time and time again, by lots and lots of rules growing like a cancer.
When the USNRC was tasked to streamline nuclear licensing and the first thing they do is put out a several hundred page preliminary report, you know we're in trouble.
When you have a regulator whose product is not licenses but billing reviewing hours, you know we're in trouble.
When even staunch pro nuclear veterans are unwilling to even acknowledge that there is a problem and continue to work within the system, you know we're in trouble.
The problems are so obvious that it is quite embarrassing that decision makers can't even acknowledge them.
Game theory demands that the existing actors do not change their game. It would take a crisis indeed, to make real changes. It's simply not here yet. A major reason why we can act like spoilt rich kids and just talk about problems without solving them is because we can. There's plenty of energy to go around. Climate change is a slow problem so it doesn't make for a crisis either.
This is a much bigger problem than just nuclear energy. It's pervasive across all rich countries. We are the spoilt rich kid generation, living off the hard work and success of previous generations. Why do hard high risk ambitious work when you can get a cushy job somewhere doing not much at all and get paid well with benefits?
There's some road construction works going on next door. The roundabout has been closed for 3 weeks. Just some new sewer pipes and pavement. Most of the construction workers seem to stand around most of the day, occassionally one is seen in an excavator pushing some dirt around. This is probably a 1 week job for 4 guys, but is going on with 6 to 8 people and probably more at the backoffice for 3 weeks and it doesn't even look close to finished.
It all makes me sad that we have become so meek and complacent.
I largely agree with your assessments here, particularly about the value of much-vaunted MOUs for reactor designs which have yet to produce a Joule of energy. However, I’d be curious as to your assessment of the prospects of Kairos Power. To me, at least, they’ve shown the most sensible, grounded pathway toward developing a truly new concept, scaling up iteratively to their Hermes prototype reactor. They also don’t seem to be loudly overpromising like some (Oklo). In my mind their biggest vulnerability is in securing a reliable supply of HALEU & TRISO fuel production. What’s your take?
There's a lot to like about Kairos. Their technical lead Per Peterson is a world class engineer. As you point out, they have not oversold. They have methodically worked step by step. They claim to have made a breakthrough in lithium enrichment. They are one of the few groups in this business that I tend to believe. If it is true, this a really big step forward for the future.
I'm not sold on their specific technology. It's a complex combination of molten salt and Triso pebbles. I'm not sure it will scale well. A lot has to go right for this to be competitive with light water. But I sure want them to try.
But assuming everything does go well technically, they will still face the same regulatory hurdles as everybody else. They will still live in a world where the regulator rules. They will still live in a world where it is in the regulator's interest to require any release reducing measure which the plant can afford, whether it's called ALARA or not. The result will be Kairos' costs will be pushed up to LWR cost if they are not already there.
HALEU was never the big technical problem that it was made out to be. Enrichment is a multiplicative process When you get from 0.7% to 5% (a factor of 7) youre most of the way to 20% (another factor of 4) All it takes is replumbing the cascade. The Russians smartly set up their cascades so that could be done by flipping a bunch of valves.
The problem was a combination of small market and the regulatory cost of getting higher enrichment approved. My sense is that artificial hurdle is being overcome. If so, I guess that's a step forward, but it is a step that never should have had to been a step.
Sorry, I don't know why google told me 5MWth. Ward250 is indeed 100kWth. Valar's website doesn't actually say anything about the power rating of their units.
The 100 kW figure is from Valar but it doesn't make any difference. Demonstrating criticality when we should be building multiple GW plants per week is not real progress.
Tina,
Your comment is totally off topic. Either reword completely or I will take it down.
Thanks Jack. Excellent work as usual.
The “electricity” trains are going in different directions in the United States and China.
The United States pursues intermittent and unreliable generated electricity from wind and solar that CANNOT support the continuous and uninterruptible electricity demanded by hospitals, airports, and telecommunications.
China is pursuing nuclear generated electricity (38 NEW nuclear reactors) that are emissions free, continuous, reliable, and affordable electricity to support ALL infrastructures.
Ron,
True but a bit off topic. The topic on the table is not wind/solar. Pro-nukes spend way too much time bashing wind/solar, when they should be asking why nuclear is so expensive in the West. The topic on the table is the direction of US nuclear policy.
The big water cooled reactor is not the reason nuclear power is prohibitively expensive in the West. The whole idea that you can make an end run around the regulatory system by switching technologies should be obvious nonsense. This deflection is keeping us from confronting the two elephants in the room: an omnipotent, auto-genocidally myopic regulatory regime based on a bogus fear, and an out of control tort system, that will monetize that fear.
You can't solve a problem unless you correctly identify its cause. This whole SMR thing is based on willfully avoiding doing just that.
Is it even true? The Chinese are also building enormous amounts of solar. They’re doing energy everything all at once, at full throttle, which seems like a great idea (apart from, alas, including coal).
Ok, I've had it. AEIOU's latest off-topic comment had to be deleted.
Oops. I aslo deleted my own comment, but it too was off topic.
Ronald, I don't think that's accurate at all. China is "all in" on energy in general, they are deploying solar just as enthusiastically as nuclear, if not more.
Guys,
If we don't get back on topic, I will have to cut this thread off.
Jack — Long Mott (X-energy project in Texas at Dow Seadrift) has its license to construct application in front of the NRC right now, they’re not just in pre-licensing engagement. It was submitted March 2025 (https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-working-with/applicant-projects/long-mott )
You say you can’t do an end-run around the strangling regulatory system by changing technologies… from my seat here in Canada, it almost appears that that’s what the Trump administration wants to do? Like the DOE licensing pathway for experimental reactors, and the very strong new direction to the NRC, the elimination of ALARA as a principle, and so on, primarily focused on Gen-IV reactors. X-Energy Long Mott doesn’t have a containment building! (Since the TRISO fuel is considered functional containment.)
There’s a principle in big organizations like governments or giant companies that sometimes if a system is broken and you can’t reform it, then the easiest way to fix things is to build a new system, start running things through that new system, and then when the new one has proven its worth, let the old one wither, and then the new one just *is* the system. (Carney is doing this with defence procurement here.)
What if they’re doing exactly what you’re proposing, it’s just they’re building the new system before they abolish the old NRC?
Geoff,
A license to start to construct a building is not an approval of the design, but thanks for the correction. Why should a regualtor even care that you are constructing a building?
As to your last point, the GKN has speculated that is just what they are thinking in Part 57. The repetitive use of the ambivalent adjective "comparable". The strange, elastic heavy metal metric. https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/part-57-the-nuscale-reg
But if so, it's not going to work. There is no "new system". It's the same old system. The regulator still has autocratic control and his incentives have not changed. LNT still reigns. A big release is still intolerable. Nuclear safety is still our overriding priority.
A "new system" will require we view radiation harm realistically. That start's with replacing LNT. The fact that we haven't been able to do that under an administration that is prepared to take political risks that would be unthinkable for almost all American politician should tell you everything you need to know.
TerraPower received its construction permit on March 4 for the Natrium to be built in Wyoming. They started construction on March 23 (according to their website). Per the press release:
"Kemmerer, Wyo. – April 23, 2026 – TerraPower, a nuclear innovation company, today, announced the official start of construction on its flagship Natrium® plant1, Kemmerer Unit 1. Kemmerer Unit 1 is on track to be the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States."
It is somewhat disappointing the lack of actual construction going on. On a recent episode of Decouple they were discussing the ABWRs at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 & 7. Took almost a decade from initial design to start of construction. But during that decade they were able to plan the construction so well it took less than 4 years for a FOAK. I know it is naive to assume Americans are just doing a lot of up front planning so the construction goes really well but I can still hope.
One fun fact I learned this week was the day Monticello got its construction permit they started construction that day.
Phil,
TerraPower has been at it since at least 2008. That's 18 years. Almost the time between WWI and WW2. During those two decades, thanks to Bill and a few of his closest buddies, they've always had plenty of money. They are still years away from producing a watt of electricity. We don't know how many years. We don't know what the electricity will cost. And the fact that they have a permit to construct a building shows how well things are going. That the Rod Adams school of positive thinking.
Meanwhile we've banned the Koreans from exporting the one real semi-success story that we have over that period. We've got to stop kidding ourselves. Things are going badly.
Obviously, you are skeptical of Trump's plan to have ten new light water reactors under construction by 2030. It is also clear from another post that you are not a fan of the Westinghouse AP1000's which Trump is planning on building Can you elaborate on these issues.
Jory,
I try to stay away from commenting on specific designs. It's not just the ThorCon conflict of interest. Far more importantly, I want 1000 flowers to bloom, in a fiercely competitive, no barriers to entry, no subsidy garden. But when the taxpayer is being ripped, I have made exceptions to that rule. NuScale is a case in point.
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-nuscale-scam
The AP1000 is a cramped, almost unmaintainable design. The piping is undersized. The AP1000 is a scale up of the AP600. Somehow Westinghouse increased the power 67% without increasing the diameter of the containment. It costs over $15,000/kW. It's not walkaway safe. The system or the operator has to fire off a bunch a squib valves to "realign" the piping to start the decay heat cooling process, and those untestable valves better work. Pls see
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-most-dismal-news-possible
That's the design that Trump wants to bet $60 billion of our money on.
Jack - the new nuclear golden age has also been golden for some exceptional engineers, technicians, project managers, welders, fabricators, greybeards who've spent a whole career NOT building anything they've designed and young, hungry nuclear energy enthusiasts who have chosen what has proven to be a pretty exciting and rewarding career path so far.
Sure, initial criticality test and demonstration units are not power plants. But that is a stage that every new power plant has to pass through before producing real power.
Toy is a rather dismissive term for demonstration systems that can readily have a heat conversion system attached once early testing has been completed and carefully documented. At least one of the test units that you mention has solid plans to be producing rated power within about 6 months after initial criticality. Several are demonstrated every day that the new rules and approval philosophies are making it possible to move through milestones at a pace that seemed inconceivable just a year ago.
I have never given up on America or its people - whether they are working in the private sector or serving in government. Sure, we go through hard times and we have experienced challenges often imposed by ourselves - aka our elected representatives - but we eventually approach a reasonable condition.
I'll be one of those who are issuing self-congratulatory pronouncements. We are making tangible progress with real hardware often manufactured in America by Americans.
Of course you'd be congratulating yourself. You're part of the system, especially now that you're into the venture capitalism scene in new nuclear. Game theory demands that you won't acknowledge structural and systematic problems, that'd be self-destructive.
The irony is that toxic positivity fixes nothing and indeed, allows the main problems to endure and spiral further out of control. The only way to really fix a problem is to start to acknowledge there is one. The present system is very very bad across the board. Cheerleading every bit of insignificant progress made within a bad system is a guarantee that nuclear power will always be a minority player in the energy scape.
A.C. I've spent the past 30 years helping to change the former system. Please reread my post - the system has been dramatically change during the past half a dozen years with a massive acceleration in the rate of change during the past year.
If you haven't noticed that change you are simply not paying attention.
What is the result? Plant Vogtle. VC Summers.
The proof of the pudding is in the making. The last 30 years has baked turds. And recently it has gotten so bad that even the turds can't get beyond that paper stage.
Vogtle and VC Summer were approved nearly 2 decades ago under a very different regime. In fact, Greg Jaczko, a professional antinuclear activist was the Chair of the NRC at the time. They had many onerous requirements and regulators who were trained to believe it wasn't their job to enable new nuclear.
You continue to prove to me that you are not paying any attention to the events and decisions that have been made in the past 5 years or so.
Guys,
Cool it. Rod focuses on inputs. Look at all the money (much of it ours) that is flowing into the hands of the promoters. Look at all the fun a bunch of bright young people are having rehashing 60 year old ideas which have a history of failure. From that viewpoint, things are going great.
AC and others focus on outputs. How much electricity are you producing? How much does it cost? From that point of view, things are not going well at all.
Just slightly different viewpoints.
Jack - You're correct that I am focused on the inputs. I learned long ago that reaching hard goals requires putting in the work, often at tasks that bore or frustrate others. Inputs are sometimes all you can really control.
If you want to become a star football player, you can't make a habit of taking your ball and going home when others don't want to change the rules to your liking.
If your hero is Mark Spitz and you dream of olympic gold, you need to input thousands of meters per day in the water for years. You have a tiny chance of achieving the dream, but there are many other benefits along the way.
If you want to be able to show off an exciting tumbling run during half time at a high school football game that includes a couple of back handsprings and ends with back tuck that you also can do from a standing start, you might want to start with forward somersaults when you are 5 or 6.
If you want to graduate from an elite university, get into a well-respected graduate program and complete an advanced degree, you might want to invest a few hours every day doing your homework and working hard at the best jobs you can find so you can pay the freight.
You aren't so correct with your characterization of the people having fun modernizing 60 year old ideas - I can testify that there are a lot of people my age and older having just as much fun as the "bright young people."
For those who don't know me, my oldest granddaughter is 16. My beard is almost completely grey.
Yes, I focus on inputs as a key ingredient in achieving desired outputs.
Spot on. Jack is one of the exceptional people willing to point out that the new nuclear emperor has no clothes.
The insidious part is it's all well meant and everyone is just playing by the rules. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it would seem time and time again, by lots and lots of rules growing like a cancer.
When the USNRC was tasked to streamline nuclear licensing and the first thing they do is put out a several hundred page preliminary report, you know we're in trouble.
When you have a regulator whose product is not licenses but billing reviewing hours, you know we're in trouble.
When even staunch pro nuclear veterans are unwilling to even acknowledge that there is a problem and continue to work within the system, you know we're in trouble.
The problems are so obvious that it is quite embarrassing that decision makers can't even acknowledge them.
Game theory demands that the existing actors do not change their game. It would take a crisis indeed, to make real changes. It's simply not here yet. A major reason why we can act like spoilt rich kids and just talk about problems without solving them is because we can. There's plenty of energy to go around. Climate change is a slow problem so it doesn't make for a crisis either.
This is a much bigger problem than just nuclear energy. It's pervasive across all rich countries. We are the spoilt rich kid generation, living off the hard work and success of previous generations. Why do hard high risk ambitious work when you can get a cushy job somewhere doing not much at all and get paid well with benefits?
There's some road construction works going on next door. The roundabout has been closed for 3 weeks. Just some new sewer pipes and pavement. Most of the construction workers seem to stand around most of the day, occassionally one is seen in an excavator pushing some dirt around. This is probably a 1 week job for 4 guys, but is going on with 6 to 8 people and probably more at the backoffice for 3 weeks and it doesn't even look close to finished.
It all makes me sad that we have become so meek and complacent.
I largely agree with your assessments here, particularly about the value of much-vaunted MOUs for reactor designs which have yet to produce a Joule of energy. However, I’d be curious as to your assessment of the prospects of Kairos Power. To me, at least, they’ve shown the most sensible, grounded pathway toward developing a truly new concept, scaling up iteratively to their Hermes prototype reactor. They also don’t seem to be loudly overpromising like some (Oklo). In my mind their biggest vulnerability is in securing a reliable supply of HALEU & TRISO fuel production. What’s your take?
There's a lot to like about Kairos. Their technical lead Per Peterson is a world class engineer. As you point out, they have not oversold. They have methodically worked step by step. They claim to have made a breakthrough in lithium enrichment. They are one of the few groups in this business that I tend to believe. If it is true, this a really big step forward for the future.
I'm not sold on their specific technology. It's a complex combination of molten salt and Triso pebbles. I'm not sure it will scale well. A lot has to go right for this to be competitive with light water. But I sure want them to try.
But assuming everything does go well technically, they will still face the same regulatory hurdles as everybody else. They will still live in a world where the regulator rules. They will still live in a world where it is in the regulator's interest to require any release reducing measure which the plant can afford, whether it's called ALARA or not. The result will be Kairos' costs will be pushed up to LWR cost if they are not already there.
HALEU was never the big technical problem that it was made out to be. Enrichment is a multiplicative process When you get from 0.7% to 5% (a factor of 7) youre most of the way to 20% (another factor of 4) All it takes is replumbing the cascade. The Russians smartly set up their cascades so that could be done by flipping a bunch of valves.
The problem was a combination of small market and the regulatory cost of getting higher enrichment approved. My sense is that artificial hurdle is being overcome. If so, I guess that's a step forward, but it is a step that never should have had to been a step.
Jack, while I agree with your overall point, I think you made a couple oversights:
1. Both Natrium and Hermes II have commercial offtake agreements and have begun construction.
2. Valar Atomics already achieved their criticality test and is on track to achieve full power demonstration of their Ward250 reactor by July 4th.
My nitpicking above aside, I totally agree that we need durable reforms for nuclear to ultimately succeed.
Yeah, I overlooked Valar. Mea culpa. But I think "full power" in this case is 100 kW. The planet need terawatts.
5 MWth, but yes, definitely need terawatts.
Sorry, I don't know why google told me 5MWth. Ward250 is indeed 100kWth. Valar's website doesn't actually say anything about the power rating of their units.
The 100 kW figure is from Valar but it doesn't make any difference. Demonstrating criticality when we should be building multiple GW plants per week is not real progress.