The US wants to build a different kind of nuclear reactor from a decades-old concept that could power ships and other off-the-grid locations
www.businessinsider.com
Most nuclear reactors use water as a coolant. Molten salt reactors use salts with higher boiling points. Kairos Power will build the US's first in decades.

One study suggested that the reactors could produce more nuclear waste than current systems and that they “will use highly corrosive and pyrophoric fuels and coolants that, following irradiation, will become highly radioactive.”

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    7 months ago

    The last try at a modern reactor in the US started around 2009, was supposed to cost $14 billion, and was supposed to be operational 7 years later in 2016.

    Instead, it wound up costing over $30 billion and just now became operational.

    In other words, it was a total shit show. No one likes to risk that much time and money very easily.

    Smaller and cheaper reactors that shouldn’t take decades to build are a lot more palatable to the people putting up the money.