> We’re building a brand new kind of nuclear reactor that can be used in places where power is unreliable, expensive, and dirty.<p>Afghanistan.<p>> It’s something that we know people want, and we can build it now, and here’s why<p>Right. These 'people' are called 'Army', 'Airforce' and 'Navy':<p><a href="http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/mobile-nuclear-reactors-could-provide-power-and-jet-fuel-military-darpa-says" rel="nofollow">http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/mobile-nucl...</a>
This is interesting to hear about somebody approaching nuclear with a start-up type approach. As a lay person I hear about reactor designs that can reduce nuclear waste and make a truck load more energy off it at the same time, which leaves me wondering why these things don't get made. Is it all institutional politics as this article makes out, or is there a safety/proliferation issue there as well?<p>If the institutional inertia has a large part to play then a startup model would be very promising.
People want reactor which passes safety regulations and this article does not even touches the subject.<p>Communist Czechoslovakia was working on something like that, civil reactor for small remote villages. They got stuck on cooling.<p>BTW there is atomic reactor in center of Prague ;-)
The article content does not match the title. Lots of talk about how the guy grew up, what shaped his outlook, etc. I saw nothing about how he is building a "small, waste- and carbon-negative reactor."<p>Is it even possible to build a reactor that meets those criteria, let alone be financially viable?
It's 2016 and we still don't have a ultimate disposal place for nuclear waste. No one knows how much the whole process will cost in the end. At least in Germany law says whoever produces nuclear waste has to ensure it will be stored securely. I don't see how this is possible with a startup. Startups usually take high risk in most of their decisions. Most startups fail within few years. Who will be responsible for the waste produced by a startup that goes bankrupt?<p>There's no other solution than to stop nuclear power now and investing all we can to care about reliably storing the waste forever (in human terms). And even if there were ways to store something reliably for 1,000,000 years, it's impossible to keep future civilizations from opening what shouldn't be. The pyramids weren't meant to be opened either. ;)
I've met Jake and he gives one of the most inspiring and pragmatic pitches about the future of energy I've ever heard. What they're building sounds like magic--massive amounts of energy with incredible safety and portability. Super exciting stuff.
Let's certainly not let the risks or difficulties of operating nuclear reactors or disposing of their waste get in the way of nuclear startups. Fortunately, those from the West Coast only look at the upside of these things per DeWitte. An attitude that existed during the Manhattan Project and some reactors with serious issues. I can't wait to see what comes of this.<p>Even the author of Learned Optimism that brought us Cognitive Therapy pointed out that pessimism made sense when we're talking risk management. The context here is nuclear materials. I have a hard time being optimistic given what past 60+ years have shown us about that.
I think 200 years in the future that's no way we will still be burning dinosaurs. We really need another nuclear age, one with safety and innovation.
It's an exciting project, but having chosen Oklo [1] as their name makes them extremely difficult to search for (try 'oklo reactor' for example), which is a little problematic for a startup...<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo</a>