I'm not sure what I'd do if I had a spare 5 megawatts of power lying around, but I would think of something.

When can I get one?

Kibbler: Sure, obviously, all those older designs were no good, boy is our face red, but this time, really, honestly, truly, for certain, pinky swear, nuclear energy will be clean, cheap and safe.

Also, did you know that coal contains uranium?!?

American reactors were usually one-offs.  These reactors are going to be manufactured by the dozen, and are completely self-contained with the nasty bits being buried 100 feet underground.  The fuel is typically unweaponizable and the design shuts down before melting down.

Like I said, when can I get one?

Kibbler: Sure, obviously, all those older designs were no good, boy is our face red, but this time, really, honestly, truly, for certain, pinky swear, nuclear energy will be clean, cheap and safe.

Also, did you know that coal contains uranium?!?

Its already clean cheap and safe.

Kibbler: Sure, obviously, all those older designs were no good, boy is our face red, but this time, really, honestly, truly, for certain, pinky swear, nuclear energy will be clean, cheap and safe.

Also, did you know that coal contains uranium?!?

Why it's almost like the more you use and learn about something the safer you can make it. It's like technology improves to the point where one day those who held it back look foolish.

These are nice, but I'd still like to see the US use pebble bed reactors instead.

Came for Diablo Canyon 2 reference, leaving disappointed.

Mr. Fission Home Energy Centre.

/Fusion is 50 years away.
It's always 50 years away.

rnatalie: Fukushima 2 Electric Boogaloo.

came for this cliche - leaving happy and chuckling despite myself.

That one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp.
But the fourth reactor...the fourth reactor stood!

The lack of derp in this thread disappoints me.

Marcus Aurelius: Kibbler: Sure, obviously, all those older designs were no good, boy is our face red, but this time, really, honestly, truly, for certain, pinky swear, nuclear energy will be clean, cheap and safe.

Also, did you know that coal contains uranium?!?

American reactors were usually one-offs.  These reactors are going to be manufactured by the dozen, and are completely self-contained with the nasty bits being buried 100 feet underground.  The fuel is typically unweaponizable and the design shuts down before melting down.

Like I said, when can I get one?

No where in the article did it actually say that these were to be the molten salt reactors you are talking about.   All the same please please please let them be.  I will have two please if they are.

Ah, yes. B&W, the fine folks who brought you Three Mile Island. I'm surprised they are still in business since there weren't any new reactors licensed for 30 years.

NIMBY

My back yard is too small.  There is a good space of public land across the street though.  Put it there please.

Not to mention the fun of Oak Ridge, TN. A place so polluted by experimentation it rivals Hanford.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves: Ah, yes. B&W, the fine folks who brought you Three Mile Island. I'm surprised they are still in business since there weren't any new reactors licensed for 30 years.

the commercial nuclear power piece of B&W has changed hands a number of times and is now part of Areva (or, as they usually put it, AREVA), a French outfit. but part of B&W made nuclear reactor stuff for the military -- like high-enrichment Navy sub fuel -- and THAT is the part of the company that still has the name and developed this small modular reactor. it looks like a grown-up version of the reactor design for cargo ships that they were trying to market back in the 60s and 70s.

/nice troll on the TMI-2 accident, btw.

Nuclear gets a really dumb, bad rap.

There are currently (world-wide) some 430 plants online right now... plus 200+ being built, and I'd guess between 50-100 that have been decommissioned (I couldn't find good numbers).
Each plant typically houses multiple reactors.

[I'm not counting mobile reactors, such as those found on subs, since those numbers are much harder to nail down.]

There have been 4 'major' plant meltdowns in history:
Lucens, one of the earliest prototypes melted down due to a design flaw. No loss of life thanks to a variety of safety features (including the plant being buried in a cavern), and no serious contamination.
3-Mile Island is categorized as a partial meltdown, as a lone technician was able to shut the plant down before it became critical. Tragically, the press didn't care, especially since a movie had just come out about something sort of vaguely similar, if you cross your eyes and squint.
Chernobyl melted down because Soviet Engineering. My grandfather helped investigate it for the state department.
Fukushima melted down because... well, it got hit by a wave approx 7m high, a hundred meters long, several meters thick... several times... moving at approx 36 km/h. The initial impact would be equivalent to the same shock as about a half-ton of TNT going off... which says nothing about the surge, pressure, and flooding.

There have been several other meltdowns of a lesser scale (single-reactor plants with only partial meltdowns), 7 in the US... almost all of which were prototypes or lab reactors, and several of which were done on purpose in order to test the systems and responses. In the US, the number of deaths as a result of nuclear reactor failures can be counted on one hand.

The tech has come a long way, too. Fukushima's the only reactor meltdown to have occurred in over 30 years.

The moral of the story? Unless your reactor was made more than 40 years ago in russia... as long as you don't try to make it melt down or blow it up, you'll be fine.