Molten salt nuclear reactors slated to power Google datacenters in 2030

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, could be home to a molten salt reactor once again if Google-backed Kairos Power has its way. The small modular reactor startup, along with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), one of the largest utilities in the country, aim to bring 50 megawatts of nuclear power to Tennessee. The Chocolate Factory, …

[Jellied Eel]

Reliable sources?

And according to researchers at Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, SMRs may never be cost effective. In a report published last year, they argued that the tech was "still too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning away from fossil fuels."

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/institute-for-energy-economics-and-financial-analysis/

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has received funding from aligned and left-of-center organizations including the Charles and Helen Brown Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation, Climate Imperative, the Energy Foundation, Heinz Endowments, the Just Transition Fund, the KR Foundation, the Laudes Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Oceankind, the Park Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Sandler Foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund.

I love the smell of astroturfing in the morning. But a grand sounding 'Institute' that's run out of a shared office building above Rozi's Wine House in Lakewood Ohio. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that the 'renewables' the IEEFA shill for are the expensive & risky solutions.

[Ace2]

Re: Reliable sources?

Renewables are risky, but letting Microsoft fire up Three Mile Island again is somehow peachy.

How about you go choke on a 9V battery? It would do wonders for the comment section here.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Reliable sources?

Yes, those notoriously left-of-centre Rockefellers, with their rabidly pro-environment allies at Standard Oil.

[deive]

Re: Reliable sources?

When some people rant about left Vs right, you can be fairly sure they have no idea what they are on about.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

Yes, those notoriously left-of-centre Rockefellers, with their rabidly pro-environment allies at Standard Oil.

Thank you for making my point. Normally with climate stuff, there's the 'big oil' meme. Here, it's an astroturfing outfit clearly funded by 'big green' with a CEO who knows nothing about the energy market. I'd never heard of this outfit when their anti-SMR 'report' came out, so fact checking the source took only a couple of minutes, and I don't know why El Reg keeps citing it, other than some of their journalists also anti-nuclear.

But MSRs are old news, and kinda fell by the wayside after the rush for using reactors for weapons programmes. Meanwhile, China-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMSR-LF1

Criticality was first achieved on 11 October 2023. On 17 June 2024, full power (2MWt) operation was achieved, and on 8 October, it operated at full power for 10 days with thorium in the molten salt; Protactinium-233 was detected, indicating successful nuclear breeding

And India is also developing MSRs, as of course is Russia. Personally, I'd love to see a law passed that the techbros can build all the AI datacentres they want, provided that they're exclusively powered by wind, solar and batteries. That would be fine, right?

[MyffyW]

Re: Reliable sources?

Thirst for electrical power is just one of many objections to the Techbro-cracy going hell-for-leather with the AI bobbins.

Where once big business was content with tearing up virgin prairie or leaving crude oils puddles around, now it seems they would prefer a mildly irradiated feudalism with their generative AI occupying the local manor house, and themselves on the throne in their Hawaiian bolt-hole.

Though you are right to shine a light on both intent and provenance, give me a left-leaning think-tank any day.

[LionelB]

Re: Reliable sources?

And the UK. The question remains whether SMRs will ever hit the "economy of scale" point where they become a worthwhile investment. But that's a chicken/egg situation, as they are unlikely to hit the economy of scale point unless they are perceived as a worthwhile investment. (It would be ironic on so many levels if that tipping point were achieved by tech bros and their bloody datacentres, but hey ho.)

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Reliable sources?

You don't have to go that far: if you look at the way Silicon Valley is spraying money all over different power sources, you'll realise this is standard VC practice. They're hoping to get in early on something that looks promising. If 1 in 10 bets work, they'll be quid in. But they're also likely to have an exit strategy for the stuff that doesn't, not least in the ability to offset the investment against tax.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

You don't have to go that far: if you look at the way Silicon Valley is spraying money all over different power sources, you'll realise this is standard VC practice.

It's more the way that IEEFA is not an honest broker, but basically a greenwashing outfit. I do agree that there's an old problem of picking winners, especially in the nuclear space given the potential risks, regulatory environment and looming power crunch. So that went back to the early days of nuclear where the best design for power generation might not have been selected because the desire for weapons development.

So perhaps MSRs would have been better. Or LFTR. Or Candu instead of the EPRs we're building. Or the sad story of Westinghouse, unceremoniously dumped by G.Brown Esq, and now there's something of a nuclear resurgence because we need energy, and lots of it. 'Renewables' can't provide cheap, reliable energy and there's a growing realisation of this truth.. But now we have the prospect of lower cost, modular SMRs and picking winnners again. Which in the UK the government is slowly doing with their evaluation and competition but isn't really investing in that and has an uphill battle against the 'renewables' lobby that has inserted itself into government and NGOs.

And then there's the bigger challenge of having a decent fuel cycle supporting whatever SMR design that is chosen so we can be as self-sufficient as possible with fuel production & reprocessing, along with other FUN! stuff like nuclear alchemy for isotope production, and waste reduction because some reactor designs can use nuclear waste as fuel.

But as you say, it's also one of those good news things. If VCs are spaffing their cash to try and pick winners, it isn't public money being invested. If we end up with say, 3-5 viable designs, there's supply diversity and infrastructure can be built to support those designs, ie things like common fuel standards etc.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Reliable sources?

If VCs are splashing cash, it's usually not their own. Lobbying for tax-breaks or subsidies is rarely far behind, because the house never loses. I don't think it matter which "think tank" endorses which approach as they all have their biases.

As for the energy debate: choose your poison because they all have downsides. Renewables can probably produce most of the power we need, but always when we need it, so storage is key but little research is going into high density, long durations systems. But trying to do everything (but especially heating) with electricity is going to make the cost of building out networks astronomical. For the proposed data centres, anything that doesn't mean they're getting preferential treatment from the grid should be welcomed but it's also going to be a pay-to-play environment, which is likely to favour the big playes even more.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

I don't think it matter which "think tank" endorses which approach as they all have their biases.

Sure, as long as those biases are made clear.. Which I think can be a problem with US 501(c)3 entities and often murkiness around charitable activities vs blatant commercial lobbying.

Renewables can probably produce most of the power we need, but always when we need it, so storage is key but little research is going into high density, long durations systems.

There's a LOT of research going into storage, mainly because of 'renewables'. Or just having cheap, compact, lightweight and high density storage is an enabler for a lot of things from electric aircraft to personal power armor. But it's also one of those wicked problems because energy storage is hard, especially when high density energy storage is basically a bomb and the magic pixies really want to be free. But see also-

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/national-grid-connects-uks-largest-battery-storage-facility-at-tilbury-substation/

With a total capacity of 600MWh, Thurrock Storage is capable of powering up to 680,000 homes, and can help to balance supply and demand by soaking up surplus clean electricity and discharging it instantaneously when the grid needs it.

With comments pointing out that that battery bank is roughly equivalent to 516t of TNT, so NG talking about instantaneous discharge might be.. bad. Or if it just burns, release a lot of toxic heavy metals and other pollutants. Or 600MWh is basically around 40s of capacity, which is rather useless during the next few days of a blocking high pressure weather system. But then these battery farms are really just subsidy farms that generate massive subsidies providing synthetic inertia to smooth out the problems that 'renewables' create.

And we get to pay those subsidies via our electricy bills, which then creates inflation, which then inflates the subsidies and it's trebles all round.. providing you're one of the 'renewables' scumbags trousering the money. Or some of that money goes to greenwashing outfits like this 'Institute' to run anti-nuclear propaganda, because the last thing the 'renewables' lobby wants is cheap, reliable SMRs that don't need batteries. It's dishonest, deceptive and disappointing that El Reg keeps citing that garbage.

For the proposed data centres, anything that doesn't mean they're getting preferential treatment from the grid should be welcomed but it's also going to be a pay-to-play environment, which is likely to favour the big playes even more.

Sure, but effective regulation can prevent abuse.. It's just that regulation currently isn't very effective and there's been a large amount of regulatory capture. So currently datacentres can pretty much socialise their energy costs, drive scarcity and push up energy costs for everyone else. Regulators could go sure, build a 500MW datacentre.. Providing you pay for 500MW of new generating capacity. Or let AlphaGoo, Microsoft etc pay for SMR R&D because then we don't have to. If they come up with a viable economic design, great, get building!* Then if (when) the AI bubble bursts, great, we then have a power surplus and depending on who owns the generating assets could potentially buy those out of Ch.11 or UK administration and get cheaper energy.

*Or we just accelerate testing & approvals for Rolls Royce SMRs and get building 300MWe chunks of those. A 4-pack of RR SMRs should be good enough for most datacentre campuses, especially given AI stuff doesn't really need to be near London.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Reliable sources?

"as long as those biases are made clear"

The IEEFA doesn't have an explicit mission statement to combat nuclear energy that I have found--as many anti-nuke organizations do--but they cite notorious anti-nuke individuals in their papers and use the same talking points and rhetoric, they attend and conduct anti-nuke seminars and events, and their work is showcased on anti-nuke sites, so I would say their bias is pretty clear. And while they don't appear to engage in outright lies and fraud, their work is clearly cherry-picked and one-sided. For their paper about how SMRs are too expensive, slow, and risky, they characterized an entire class of reactor (for which there are around 80 different designs in development) based on just four designs (zero of which were molten salt reactors).

"energy storage is hard, especially when high density energy storage is basically a bomb and the magic pixies really want to be free."

That would be the case for electron storage. It is much easier, safer, and cheaper to store energy as heat. The IEEFA paper mentioned the proposal to use molten salt thermal storage at high-temperature reactors for flexible output, and their rebuttal for that was based on capacity factor, saying "The less they run, the more their per megawatt-hour costs rise and the harder it will be for them to compete in the market. Having invested billions, it is unlikely developers will willingly cycle their plants to accommodate renewables." First, they didn't understand that, with storage, the capacity factor of the reactor would be divorced from the capacity factor for the plant. They also didn't understand that time-shifting the reactor output to when electricity price is high increases the revenue for the amount of fuel burned. They also assumed a model of an expensive nuclear plant and cheap fuel--which wouldn't apply to Kairos. And they also didn't get that plants with thermal storage would actually benefit from and rely on intermittents carrying the load at times to give the reactors a chance to recharge the thermal storage tanks.

"With a total capacity of 600MWh, Thurrock Storage is capable of powering up to 680,000 homes,"

The Gemasolar plant has 300MWh worth of electricity-equivalent storage (with virtually no explosion potential) for a 20 MW(e) plant. If that much storage is cost-effective for such a small solar plant, it should be at least as feasible to have 3600MWh(e) storage for an 240MW(e) capacity nuclear plant (paired with, say, an 80MW(e) reactor), especially since all the storage could be dedicated to price arbitrage and accommodating grid fluctuations instead of most of it having to cover a low-capacity-factor heat source.

A 240MW plant would also be small enough to make air-cooling feasible. (A 400MW air-cooled geothermal plant is planned for Utah). With air cooling, one of the things you can do with the secondary heat and the large amounts of air moved by the cooling fans is to use that to power direct-from-air CO2 extraction (currently possible at around 2MWH(th) per tonne of CO2). With that, around 80MW-years of electricity production could also power around 300k tonnes of CO2 capture, mostly on "waste" energy. Build 100k plants like that and we might be able to pull around 30 gigatonnes of CO2 out of the air per year.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

The Gemasolar plant has 300MWh worth of electricity-equivalent storage (with virtually no explosion potential) for a 20 MW(e) plant. If that much storage is cost-effective for such a small solar plant, it should be at least as feasible to have 3600MWh(e) storage for an 240MW(e) capacity nuclear plant (paired with, say, an 80MW(e) reactor), especially since all the storage could be dedicated to price arbitrage and accommodating grid fluctuations instead of most of it having to cover a low-capacity-factor heat source.

Those are pretty big ifs. But if they are cost effective, then they couldl be built without any public subsidy. Or Google could decide to build molten salt batteries to complement the SMRs they're building and be self-sufficent. Plants like Gemasolar don't appear to be that efficient, even when they're in sunny Spain and would be a lot less efficient in the UK due to lower insolation. And then there's the issue of having enough storage to cope with the dunkelflaute conditions that can result in low winds and sun for days. Especially during winter when heating demand is highest and the lack of heating kills people. Price arbitrage and grid stabilisation are also anti-competitive because their function is to increase the price of energy, not reduce it.

Which is part of the general regulatory environment, ie the cheapest solution is nuclear + gas, but nuclear isn't treated as being low carbon, and gas is penalised by carbon taxes and the whole 'levelised cost' scam to try and make 'renewables' appear competitive. If 'renewables' were made to pay for firm delivery, they'd never get built and even if they're not, there's the cognitive dissonance from the 'renewables' lobby claims that they're cheap and costs are falling when the opposite is happening. So the prices offered during CfD rounds, which gave the scumbags PR when there were some lowball bids of <£50/MWh but then the bidders abandoned those projects, or tried to renegotiate much higher strike prices.

With that, around 80MW-years of electricity production could also power around 300k tonnes of CO2 capture, mostly on "waste" energy. Build 100k plants like that and we might be able to pull around 30 gigatonnes of CO2 out of the air per year.

That's kind of swapping a Bhopal style battery fire for a Lake Nyos incident. Plus there isn't much "waste" energy. Currently we pay subsidy farmers the best part of £1bn in constraint payments not to deliver a worthless product, worthless being because there's no demand. There is no demand for 300kt of CO2 either, unless that gets used for enhanced oil & gas recovery. So maybe we spend 1MWh per tonne to remove, compress, transport and dump into a hole in the ground. Kafka would be proud. Then the small matter of the process used. So common proposals are to use calcium & sodium hydroxide.. Which is again Kafka-esque because they're made from quicklime, which is made heating limestone to >800C, which requires a lot of energy and becomes something of a displacement activity.

Quarry kilotonnes of calcium carbonate, throw energy at it to drive off the CO2 and turn it into quicklime. Gloss over the CO2 produced in that process and then turn it back into calcium carbonate in an air scrubber.. And then in true Net Zero fashion, don't think about how this process wastes energy and will have no measurable effect on temperatures. Or how nature beat us to this problem, which is why there are many, many gigatonnes of carbonates already in the environment and long term CO2 trends have been in decline. And reducing atmospheric CO2 means we lose the fertilisation effects and boosts to crop yields, so food costs increase, increasing inflation even faster than wasting energy on 'ideas' like this already do.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Reliable sources?

"...if they are cost effective, then they could be built without any public subsidy."

New kinds of nuclear might not be cost effective right at first, especially with the front-loading of billions in regulatory costs. But we supported wind and solar before they became economically viable, and I think new kinds of nuclear have even better potential.

"Or Google could decide to build molten salt batteries to complement the SMRs they're building and be self-sufficent."

Google is contracting the power from Kairos, But Google would be a steady customer, and Kairos would be a steady supplier, so neither would need storage. The storage approach would be for helping the grid with fluctuations in demand and production. As you note, this is a difficult problem for electron storage. But it's relatively easy and safe when the energy is stored as heat.

"Plants like Gemasolar don't appear to be that efficient, even when they're in sunny Spain..."

I was citing them as an example of economically-viable heat storage. Storage should work same way if the heat comes from nuclear reactors--though it can be cycled in a way that is more useful to the grid.

"Price arbitrage and grid stabilisation are also anti-competitive because their function is to increase the price of energy, not reduce it."

Price fluctuations are a normal way for markets to try to match supply and demand.

[CO2 capture] "That's kind of swapping a Bhopal style battery fire for a Lake Nyos incident."

We are already piping CO2 thousands of miles. Yes, it needs to be managed well.

"Plus there isn't much "waste" energy."

Currently, nuclear power throws away all the heat that doesn't go toward producing electricity (around 66%). With hotter reactors, the secondary heat (what we currently call "waste" heat) is also hotter and becomes more useful for other purposes.

"There is no demand for 300kt of CO2 either, unless that gets used for enhanced oil & gas recovery."

CO2 sequestration could also be used to produce verifiable carbon credits. Oxy Petroleum wanted to do this on a gigatonne scale on the King Ranch in Texas--before Trump returned and messed it up, or at least delayed it. Or, combine CO2 with hydrogen, and you can produce syncrude, from which a range of hydrocarbon fuels and products can be refined. The U.S. Navy researched this to produce jet fuel from seawater and showed that it worked. But using expensive Navy nuclear heat to drive the process resulted in a cost of around $7 per gallon, which was not competitive. But much cheaper nuclear heat could make the fuel much cheaper. Using hydrocarbons as an energy storage and transfer medium, any of our internal combustion engines could be converted to running on nuclear power--using the fuel infrastructure we already have in place.

"So common proposals are to use calcium & sodium hydroxide."

Or potassium hydroxide, in the case of the half-megaton Stratos plant currently being built in Texas.

"Which is again Kafka-esque because they're made from quicklime, which is made heating limestone to >800C"

The calcium can be recycled endlessly, and there are ways to reduce the CO2 release temperatures down to as low as 300C.

"which requires a lot of energy"

Which is a less big deal if it is a co-process paired with electricity production.

"don't think about how this process wastes energy and will have no measurable effect on temperatures."

We are at around a trillion tonnes excess atmo CO2 from pre-industrial levels so far. It's definitely having a measurable effect, but between a third and a half of the heating potential is being masked by the shading effect from our combustion particulates. If all we do is go to clean energy and we don't do anything about the CO2 already in the air, our pace of heating will increase greatly once we lose the smog shading, and that heating will persist for centuries. We only have two options to counteract the long-term heating. We can reduce the incoming sunlight or we can radiate our heat out into space faster (such as by reducing our greenhouse effect).

"Or how nature beat us to this problem, which is why there are many, many gigatonnes of carbonates already in the environment"

Trillions of tonnes in our seas, quintillions of tons on land. Yes. But the natural conversion processes are slow. We got into this situation on an industrial scale, and now we need to address it on an industrial scale.

"reducing atmospheric CO2 means we lose the fertilisation effects and boosts to crop yields,"

There are some benefits, in some places, to having more CO2. But you also have to look at the harms and risks. Like how we're jeopardizing the thermo-haline circulation of our oceans. And with less turnover, acidification in surface waters becomes a more serious risk. (There are lots of ways to address that directly, but they need energy too.) Like how we might release a huge amount of methane as the permafrost layer descends. Like the risks of more heat-stress, more wildfires, more droughts, more floods, and more woodland blights.

"so food costs increase"

A large chunk of agriculture is for energy crops. With synfuels, we wouldn't need those. Nuclear heat can also produce fertilizers, and in some cases, nitrogen is a larger constraint than CO2. With a lot of clean energy, we could also support energy-intensive food production systems, like aquaponics or cell-cultivated foods.

"increasing inflation even faster than wasting energy on 'ideas' like this already do."

Money is created as debt. Money to cover the interest on the debt is not created. Inflation is baked into our monetary system. Even producing a large amount of cheap energy won't be able to fix that.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

But it's relatively easy and safe when the energy is stored as heat.

I think the problem is what to do with that heat, along with land use requirements and if reconversion to electricity is cost effective and responsive enough to provide the synthetic inertia needed to counteract the instability created by 'renewables'. Plus capacity, ie enough heat storage to cope with the dunkelflaute days of reduced wind and sun.

Currently, nuclear power throws away all the heat that doesn't go toward producing electricity (around 66%). With hotter reactors, the secondary heat (what we currently call "waste" heat) is also hotter and becomes more useful for other purposes.

Sure, which gets back to picking winners and optimal designs for both electricity and heat generation. Then cost/benefits of utilising any 'waste' heat. Which could be as simple as filling the exclusion/buffer zones around NPPs with greenhouses. Reduced heating costs, cheaper food and just needs some marketing to counteract all the nuclear FUD so people would buy nuclear powered tomatoes.

CO2 sequestration could also be used to produce verifiable carbon credits. Oxy Petroleum wanted to do this on a gigatonne scale on the King Ranch in Texas--before Trump returned and messed it up, or at least delayed it.

Enron were also pioneers in this field, lobbying hard for creating a carbon market that thus far has proven to be massively fraudulent. One popular scam/scheme was trading trees for offsets so the rich and shameless could charter yachts or jet around the world and still feel virtuous. Plus a new casino for a new commodity and trading profits. But could also incentivise reforestation, except that's offset by Drax burning forests and being given the best part of £1bn a year for doing something that isn't exactly 'Green'. Helps if you have influence over the Climate Change Committee though and own one of the last large combustion plants in the UK that we're now very dependent on for keeping the lights on.

But much cheaper nuclear heat could make the fuel much cheaper. Using hydrocarbons as an energy storage and transfer medium, any of our internal combustion engines could be converted to running on nuclear power--using the fuel infrastructure we already have in place.

Yep, but the Green neo-luddites are still busily reinventing the wheel. Henrietta Ford drove an EV, but we learned the electron transmission and storage required is a wicked problem to solve, and hydrocarbons are far more efficient. Now Greens are doubling down on dumb by effectively regulating for sail-powered vehicles, even though our ancestors knew the disadvantages of relying on the wind. Hence the Industrial Revolution. But thanks to regulatory capture, morons like Ed Milliband are ignoring the lessons of the past, along with physics, chemistry and thermodynamics in pursuit of virtue signalling with Net Zero, which will cost trillions and achieve.. Nothing. Other than economic collapse and no measurable difference to temperatures.

But I've long been a fan of the Sabatier & Fischer-Tropsch processes. WW2 Germany and sanctioned S.Africa used those to produce synfuels when they couldn't get oil, so 'peak oil' is a bit of a myth when we can just make more.. If we can solve the cost problem. Which we're not really doing, ie proposals to switch from CH4 to H2 for heating and cooking, which will cost billions, increase inflation due to the higher cost of producing H2 and not really solve any problem. Especially when the 'idea' is to use 'waste' energy from 'renewables'. That could reduce the need to pay constraint payments to wind farmers, but still has the problem of intermittency, along with the multiple demands on that energy. Batteries need to be recharged, H2 needs to be produced and a lot of chemical processes don't like being interrupted.

Or potassium hydroxide, in the case of the half-megaton Stratos plant currently being built in Texas.

That just needs megatons of potash instead of limestone, which means shipping it from Canada or elsewhere, which means more mining, which the Greens try to prevent. At least Texas could use the CO2 for enhanced recovery, but the fundamental problem remains. Spending billions to produce a product that is then just dumped into holes in the ground. So massive costs, and no economic benefit.

We are at around a trillion tonnes excess atmo CO2 from pre-industrial levels so far. It's definitely having a measurable effect, but between a third and a half of the heating potential is being masked by the shading effect from our combustion particulates.

There is a measurable effect, but the causation is by no means certain. So one could argue that the effect is a result of the end of the Little Ice Age, accelerated in part by Clean Air Acts and overlaid on the natural effects of the last big Ice Age ending. Then compounded by measurement errors caused by poor weather station siting that means those stations shouldn't be used for climatology, but are frequently used to claim temperature 'records' and keeping the Global Warming FUD going.

If all we do is go to clean energy and we don't do anything about the CO2 already in the air, our pace of heating will increase greatly once we lose the smog shading, and that heating will persist for centuries

But it won't. The physics of CO2 are well understood. 4 absorption/emission bands, 3 overlapping with the dominant 'GHG', H2O. So a small radiative effect dominated by conduction, convection, evaporation etc and the 'Greenhouse Effect' only 'traps' heat for a tiny fraction of a second before those photons continue their inexorable journey upwards to space. Again something history demonstrates because we didn't achieve Thermageddon when our atmosphere was denser, there was much more atmospheric CO2 and most life on Earth managed to evolve. Also why most of our food crops thrive on higher CO2 levels, and that can reduce heat & water stresses.

There are some benefits, in some places, to having more CO2. But you also have to look at the harms and risks. Like how we're jeopardizing the thermo-haline circulation of our oceans. And with less turnover, acidification in surface waters becomes a more serious risk.

Acidification isn't a serious risk because the oceans are alkaline and contain terratonnes of carbonates. Which is also an interesting history lesson. So we can go stand on a a massive graveyard of these criitters-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coccolithus_pelagicus.jpg

if we visit places like the White Cliffs of Dover. They're rather fascinating because they get used in climate proxies and have some cool properties, like body armour that creates a reflective shell, and emit DMS and DMSP, which have a cooling effect. Plus they also create very stable alkenone molecules. They're also somewhat controversial-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLAW_hypothesis

Which is one small part of trying to resolve CO2 dogma, along with bigger issues like 'Why Ice Ages?'. Given all the evidence for higher temperatures and CO2 levels in the past, why haven't we died already? Which is then about the positive/negative effects wrt climate change, and interpretation of proxy records. If high CO2 means acidification, then coccolithophores might struggle, or they might thrive. Then the alkenones are used to create temperature proxies, and if the assumed response is wrong, then those proxies are inverted. And we know from all the chalk they've left behind, they've thrived when temperatures & CO2 levels were higher.

And then the really neat thing is if they can drive climate change. We know they can influence cloud formation via DMS/DMSP emission, and clouds mean cooling. We know they have an albedo effect because we can see milky coccolithophore blooms from space.. But is this effect large enough to explain glaciation? We warm, CO2 levels increase naturally as a result of that warming, coccolithophores bloom, albedo increases due to clouds and reflection, more energy is radiated back to space, we cool, and then the process repeats.

Nuclear heat can also produce fertilizers, and in some cases, nitrogen is a larger constraint than CO2. With a lot of clean energy, we could also support energy-intensive food production systems, like aquaponics or cell-cultivated foods.

Or the big one. Nuclear alchemy also produces the medical & industrial isotopes we need, and 'renewables' can't produce. Otherwise you're right, and pretty everything benefits from cheap, reliable energy. Which 'Net Zero' is doing the opposite by making energy more expensive and less reliable. Germany's a great example of this with their current de-industrialisation driven by their neo-luddites.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Reliable sources?

[CO2 sequestration for verifiable carbon credits.]

"Enron were also pioneers in this field, lobbying hard for creating a carbon market that thus far has proven to be massively fraudulent."

And piecemeal, and mismanaged, and diluted with misguided good intentions. Yes. All that. To work, it has to be a large system with many parts, and the process of assembly is unavoidably going to be messy. This cannot be put together by fossil companies alone, nor by individual countries. This needs to be an international market, which means it needs a global oversight board. And the credits need to be based on CO2 removal which can be monitored, measured, validated, and audited. But all the largest players want this, so there's a good chance it can happen.

"One popular scam/scheme was trading trees for offsets"

And the inclusion of credits for forest-preservation in some markets was also a mistake. Nice idea, but it doesn't belong there.

"Plus a new casino for a new commodity and trading profits."

That's a problem for the C-credit producers and customers to work out. The important part is to establish a market where in order to release a unit of CO2, someone, somewhere, has to verifiably sequester the going exchange-rate unit of CO2. (Probably under-unity at first but potentially going to over-unity as the market matures.)

This is better than cap and trade because it wouldn't base the currency on previous emissions, and better than carbon taxes because 1) it would be international, and 2) because it wouldn't just penalize emissions, it would also reward capture and sequestration--and fund the development of an industry to do that.

"But could also incentivise reforestation,"

Only if they can figure out the validation. If not, then we should look for a better vehicle for that elsewhere.

"except that's offset by Drax burning forests"

Ironic that it was treehugger activism that drove the creation of the standard Drax exploited.

"But I've long been a fan of the Sabatier & Fischer-Tropsch processes."

I suspect we've just barely scratched the surface of their potential.

"so 'peak oil' is a bit of a myth when we can just make more.. If we can solve the cost problem."

I think Kairos will solve the capital cost problem. The fuel, on the other hand, will be a lot more expensive than traditional nuclear--something like $10 per MWh(th) at first. But their fuel looks like a good candidate for cost reduction through mass production. A barrel of oil is currently running around $38 per MWh(th), and I gather Fischer-Tropsch energy efficiency is generally around 50%, so even at the high initial price, that's not a huge distance from competitive price territory. When we develop molten salt fast reactors, the fuel cost will be effectively free, so their challenge will be constraining the cost to build and operate them. These are the reactors we really need, but the business case for them is very tough. The basic principles are virtually unpatentable, and the first-mover regulatory costs will be horrendous (if we don't fix that).

"At least Texas could use the CO2 for enhanced recovery, but the fundamental problem remains. Spending billions to produce a product that is then just dumped into holes in the ground. So massive costs, and no economic benefit."

That's what the carbon credit market would be for. It's like the billions we spend on sustaining crypto-currency, except this currency would be based on something real and doing actual good.

[between a third and a half of the heating potential is being masked by the shading effect from our combustion particulates.]

"There is a measurable effect, but the causation is by no means certain."

All science is probabilistic. But we can measure the dimming effect, and the reflectance effect. The main indeterminate value is how much the low-reflectance particulates have shifted solar absorption from the ground and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere (where re-radiation into space happens quicker).

"But it won't. The physics of CO2 are well understood. 4 absorption/emission bands, 3 overlapping with the dominant 'GHG', H2O."

Even the overlapping bands can add to the greenhouse gas effect. And yes, the effect is small relative to H2O. But in total system terms, warming is also a small effect. Absorbed solar energy averages something like ~240 W/m^2 and the imbalance is currently running around 0.76 W/m^2, so it's only around 0.3% difference between energy absorbed and energy radiated.

"and the 'Greenhouse Effect' only 'traps' heat for a tiny fraction of a second before those photons continue their inexorable journey upwards to space."

If our infra-red photons could reach space that quickly, our night-time temperatures would plunge precipitously every night. As I understand it, the photons are absorbed and re-radiated many times in the air, and there is no preferential direction for each re-radiation.

"Acidification isn't a serious risk because the oceans are alkaline and contain terratonnes of carbonates."

Nearly 3 terratonnes of free carbonate in the waters, I gather. And this does act as a buffering agent as it converts to bicarbonate--eventually. But only a fraction of that supply is available in the upper waters where shell and coral building takes place, and the data looks like we've already increased the supply of free protons in these waters by around 25 to 30% on average--which slows down shell building and coral formation, posing a particular risk to the youngest shell builders. There's some uncertainty about how this will play out, but marine biologists are clearly worried.

"...we can go stand on a massive graveyard of these criitters-"

But how long did that take to accumulate? Our enemy here is time.

"Given all the evidence for higher temperatures and CO2 levels in the past, why haven't we died already?"

Modern humans began to exist around 300,000 years ago. At no point during the past 2.5 million years (until the industrial revolution) did CO2 exceed 300 ppm. We're now above 420 and climbing rapidly.

"We know from all the chalk they've left behind, they've thrived when temperatures & CO2 levels were higher."

And many species that thrived in high-CO2 periods might not even be able to survive at our lower levels. But changes in the past have generally occurred on timescales of millions of years. That gives species time to adapt, or for ecosystem to adapt with a slower rate of extinctions.

"Nuclear alchemy also produces the medical & industrial isotopes we need, and 'renewables' can't produce."

This probably won't be a large factor for Triso fuel. It is very tough to take apart. (Though we can use the neutrons in the reactor to do some of that.) Today's spent fuel is relatively easy to take apart, and we should be doing that--both for the usable isotopes and to reduce the waste profile by over 99%. Molten salt fast reactors will be where the isotope industry really takes off.

"pretty [much] everything benefits from cheap, reliable energy. Which 'Net Zero' is doing the opposite by making energy more expensive and less reliable."

I think future people will look back at today's environmentalists and climate activists opposing nuclear in much the same way we view doctors of old who opposed hand-washing and sanitary operating conditions. But they are slowly coming around. The Nature Conservancy is now pro-nuclear. Zion Lights left her high-profile position with Extinction Rebellion and is now a nuclear advocate. And we only need the reasonable ones. Leaving the zealots, fraudsters, and crazies to represent the opposition side is good for the pro-nuclear side.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

If our infra-red photons could reach space that quickly, our night-time temperatures would plunge precipitously every night. As I understand it, the photons are absorbed and re-radiated many times in the air, and there is no preferential direction for each re-radiation.

Well.. it does. So the difference between Tmin and Tmax is greater than the increase in Tmax attributed to anthropogenic CO2. Especially when measurements of Tmax aren't very reliable due to poor weather station siting, or the switch to platinum resistance thermometers that can record transients that have nothing to do with weather or climate, eg 3 Typhoons taking off at RAF Coningsby allowed the Met Office to claim a temperature record that clearly wasn't weather related. The Met Office tries to use paired sites to correct for those kinds of anomalies, but if both sites are Class-3 or 4, neither are reliable for climatology per WMO guidelines.

Plus the bigger issue that we're arguably measuing the wrong thing. Basic CO2 dogma is it somehow 'traps heat' because upwelling IR is re-radiated back downwards. So signs of this should have a stronger signal in Tmin records, not Tmax.. Yet all the PR is around Tmax, which could have other causes, so the result of clean air acts, urbanisation, changes in cloud cover, solar variability etc etc. But why we're relying on themometers is one of those mysteries. Pyrgeometers & pyranometers both exist to directly measure up & downwelling IR, and if we wanted to get really scientific, spectrometers with filters tuned to specifically measure the CO2 wavebands are installed on orbiting carbon observatories.

Downside is if we'd installed those in the '70s when the impending Ice Age scare hit, we'd have nearly 2 climate intervals (ie 30yr chunks of average weather) we'd have more reliable data, and wouldn't have had to rely on trying to use trees and bad statistics as CO2 proxies. But yep, when a CO2 molecule sheds a photon, it'll be emitted in a random direction. Which means if, say, it's emitted from a valley floor, it's more likely to hit the ground again but the higher it rises, the probability increases that it'll miss. And then there's still the general flux being heat loss, and the bigger effects are convection, conduction, evaporation etc.. Which is also an H2O issue, ie clouds during the day = cooler, at night = warmer because H2O 'traps heat' far better than CO2. This is also a bit of a current event, ie the massive eruption of Hunga Tonga kicked gigatonnes of H2O high into the atmosphere. Theory goes that would lead to a few years of warming, and then temperatures would revert, and this appears to be happening.

But how long did that take to accumulate? Our enemy here is time.

True. Fools rush in and all that. Except the fool in this case is someone like Ed Millibrain, first with his Climate Change Act, then with his (OK, May's) Net Zero. Standard high-pressure sales tactics to Act Now! and lock in trillions in spending to fight the War on Warmth, banish the CO2 molecule and solve a problem that might not actually exist. And there's certainly no evidence of any 'climate emergency' that would demand wasting billions more on pre-Industrial power & energy generation.

At no point during the past 2.5 million years (until the industrial revolution) did CO2 exceed 300 ppm. We're now above 420 and climbing rapidly.

Except we can't actually state this with any real certainty. Proxies again. This time, ice cores that have lousy resolution and spatial coverage, not to mention issues around gas diffusion as snow falls and compacts. One of the most famous core studies is Vostok, showing 420ka of CO2 from only (from memory) 32 slices of ice.. But also shows CO2 levels rising in response to warming, which is to be expected given yeasts and soil bacteria generate far more CO2 than we do. Then for additional FUN!, the start of the Industrial Revolution coincided with the end of the Little Ice Age, so warming was to be expected and it's a false correlation. Except climate 'scientists' argue the LIA never happened, and neither did the Medieval Warm Period because those can't be explained by CO2 dogma. Or the reality deniers claim the MWP & LIA were somehow localised phenomena, but can't provide any sound theories to explain this. Or why these mysterious phenomena only happened in places where we have strong evidence for the MWP & LIA.

This probably won't be a large factor for Triso fuel. It is very tough to take apart. (Though we can use the neutrons in the reactor to do some of that.)

Nuclear alchemy is vital for humanity, but also something neo-luddites seem determined to ban. So G.Brown Esq having free time after flogging our gold and nuclear industry spent time scouring our shoress, finding particles of Technetium-99m and screeching this was 'proof' that Sellafield was leaking.. Not a result of patients being fed by moly cows for diagnostic imaging and those patients then pooping. Radiation. So deadly that we intentionally feed it to sick people to help make them better.. But isotope production is one of those things we need to factor into nuclear policy and strategy. We need those istopes, and many of the useful/vital ones have a very short shelf (ok, half) life.

I think future people will look back at today's environmentalists and climate activists opposing nuclear in much the same way we view doctors of old who opposed hand-washing and sanitary operating conditions. But they are slowly coming around.

Yep, which is part of the regulatory capture. Climate 'scientists' aren't energy experts and shouldn't be part of the energy policy conversation. Low carbon you say? Fine, we'll build nuclear. Can't really get much more carbon-energy efficient than that. Nuclear as an excellent safety record, waste is manageable, but overcoming decades of anti-nuclear FUD is challenging, although we do appear to be heading in the right direction at last.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Reliable sources?

[If our infra-red photons could reach space that quickly, our night-time temperatures would plunge precipitously every night.] "Well.. it does."

If it only took a few seconds for infrared photons to reach space, even equatorial regions would fall far below freezing every night.

"So the difference between Tmin and Tmax is greater than the increase in Tmax attributed to anthropogenic CO2."

Sure. The net warming is only on the order of a few degrees per century. Just like daily variability is of much larger magnitude than the daily drift due to seasonal changes. But a small but persistent trend in the noise can eventually accumulate to a large difference.

"Basic CO2 dogma is it somehow 'traps heat'"

It slows down its egress.

"because upwelling IR is re-radiated back downwards."

And the downwards reflectance is roughly double the incoming solar energy absorbed at the surface. (And that was the case long before humans came along, but now there is a small change in that ratio.)

"Yet all the PR is around Tmax, "

I'm pretty sure it's about averages.

"which could have other causes"

Possible. But human activity looks like the most likely long-term trend cause.

"But yep, when a CO2 molecule sheds a photon, it'll be emitted in a random direction. Which means if, say, it's emitted from a valley floor, it's more likely to hit the ground again"

And with multiple absorptions and re-radiations in the air, the net downwards emissions nearly equal the net upwards emissions.

"but the higher it rises, the probability increases that it'll miss."

Or that the upward emissions will, on average, get slightly further before reabsorption than the downward emissions into denser atmosphere.

"the massive eruption of Hunga Tonga kicked gigatonnes of H2O high into the atmosphere. Theory goes that would lead to a few years of warming,"

I'm pretty sure water cycles through the atmosphere a lot faster than that. The oceans put around 440 trillion tonnes of water into the air each year. But warmer air does hold more water vapor, so we could see water vapor amplifying warming effects.

"Act Now! and lock in trillions in spending to fight the War on Warmth, banish the CO2 molecule and solve a problem that might not actually exist."

It's possible surface warming isn't happening, but the odds are small. It's pretty clear the glaciers are receding, as is arctic ice, and our upper atmosphere is getting colder and we are radiating less heat into space. It's possible we aren't the cause of the surface warming, but the odds are small. And there are certainly some very expensive ways to constrain CO2 emissions, some of which will probably make warming worse, but that doesn't mean we have no good options. I think a transition to nuclear hydrocarbon fuels will ultimately save money (and reduce pollution and destructive mining and save lives and all that good stuff) and once we have that capability on a large scale, we could use a fraction of that capacity to set atmo CO2 to whatever level we want. We could also knock down the worst of the hydropower dams and maybe restore some river ecosystems and fish runs. Abundant cheap energy gives us all kinds of options.

"G.Brown Esq .. spent time scouring our shores, finding particles of Technetium-99m and screeching this was 'proof' that Sellafield was leaking..

Technetium-99m has a half-life of approximately 6 hours. It is highly unlikely that could be coming from Sellafield.

"Climate 'scientists' aren't energy experts and shouldn't be part of the energy policy conversation."

I think everyone has a right to participate in the conversation. And it creates a dilemma for anti-nuclear climate activists when leading climate scientists come out strongly in favor of nuclear development. I like to see the controversy. That's where change happens.

"Nuclear has an excellent safety record, waste is manageable, but overcoming decades of anti-nuclear FUD is challenging, although we do appear to be heading in the right direction at last."

Anti-nuclear organizations in the U.S. alone rake in more than $2.3 billion per year and the product they are selling is FUD, which I imagine is pretty cheap to manufacture. They are not going to give up such a lucrative business model easily or willingly. And their longtime supporters are going to find it hard to come to terms with the prospect that they may have been fighting on the wrong side of this issue, and donating lots of money to make things worse, and they'll find it easier to retreat into the alternate-reality cult bubble the anti-nuke leaders are creating for them. Considering what it takes to overcome such factors, the dramatic rise in public acceptance of nuclear is even more remarkable and impressive.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

If it only took a few seconds for infrared photons to reach space, even equatorial regions would fall far below freezing every night.

That's probably an intentional misunderstanding of the basic 'Greenhouse Effect', along with some basic physics and thermodynamics. Radiative heat loss is via IR photons, those travel at roughly 299,702km/s so it takes roughly 0.0299s to travel the 10,000km of our atmosphere, +/- any tiny delays where it might be absorbed & then re-radiated by other molecules like H2O. Then you're probably thinking of another stock Global Warming lie with 'far below freezing', ie the good'ol S-B equations and theoretical temperatues based on the Earth being a black body, which it isn't, and never has been.

And the downwards reflectance is roughly double the incoming solar energy absorbed at the surface.

I have to assume you're mistaken, or are kidding. That statement is implausible even for climate 'science'. Insolation is rougly 800W/m^2 from that incoming solar energy. Atmospheric doubling of that to 1.6kW/m^2 would require extremely strong positive feedbacks that have never been detected and would require a rethink around the laws of thermodynamics. Which we wouldn't be able to do because if true, we'd all be dead. But we measure insolation at TOA and surface, and also reflectance-

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/4532/earthshine-and-climate

They also derived an estimate of changes in the Earth’s albedo over the past 20 years. The researchers found that while the Earth’s surface grew sunnier and less cloudy from 1984 to 2000, the trend appears to have reversed itself somewhat from 2001-03. During the last three years the Earth grew cloudier, brightening the planet’s albedo to pre-1995 values.

Albedo is an important factor in climate change because it determines the amount of energy from the Sun that the Earth absorbs,

The Earth 'brightens', insolation is reduced, there is less warming because less energy reaches the surface and 'The Pause' in Global Warming might be explained. Or just demonstrates a negative feedback, so more clouds, less warming.. Which is easily observed, but very hard to model.

I'm pretty sure it's about averages.

It's about averaging Tmax rather than Tmin, although a raw average would also work. But only if those temperature measurements were reliable, and often they're not. So claiming 'record temperatures' after measuring jet exhaust at RAF Coningsby.

I'm pretty sure water cycles through the atmosphere a lot faster than that. The oceans put around 440 trillion tonnes of water into the air each year. But warmer air does hold more water vapor, so we could see water vapor amplifying warming effects.

Yup, much of which hangs around the boundary layer which is where most of the 'Global Warming' happens. But Hunga Tonga ejected massive amounts of H2O into the stratosphere where it persists for longer and leads to things like this-

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL111500

Global average upper atmosphere temperature changes linked with the Hunga volcanic eruption (January 2022) are analyzed based on satellite measurements and compared with chemistry-climate model simulations. Results show stratospheric cooling of −0.5 to −1.0 K in the middle and upper stratosphere during 2022 through middle 2023, followed by stronger cooling (−1.0 to −2.0 K) in the mesosphere after middle 2023. The cooling patterns follow the upward propagating water vapor (H2O) anomalies from Hunga, and similar behavior is found between observations and model simulations.

and then this-

https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_July_2025_v6.1_20x9-scaled.jpg

and predictions that Hunga Tonga's eruption would lead to transient warming for a few years, followed by a return to normal. And reality doesn't correlate with CO2 dogma, ie CO2 cannot explain the recent spike in observed temperatures, but the eruption can and the predicted reduction in waming is observed. Which is sadly normal for climate 'science'. If observations contradict model predictions, then reality is obviously wrong, right?

But this is also one of those political issues, ie the eruption was observed pretty much by chance and NASA's Earth Observation division collects (and sometimes misinterprets) the data. And the US is planning to scrap a lot of that, or move it to NOAA where it arguably should be. Luckily other nations also operate Earth observatiion satellites.

Also you might find this article interesting-

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/21/how-co2-both-warms-and-cools-our-atmosphere/

along with the comments, which include actual scientists. Reality deniers hate WUWT for allowing that kind of debate.

It's possible surface warming isn't happening, but the odds are small. It's pretty clear the glaciers are receding, as is arctic ice, and our upper atmosphere is getting colder and we are radiating less heat into space.

Some surface warming is happening, but hampered by poor observations. Or short data records, sparse sampling or just faking the numbers by kridging to create temperature records where no observations exist. NASA GISS is notorious for doing this and producing heat maps showing temperatures where they have no observations.

Glaciers might be receding but a) this is expected because we're exiting an Ice Age b) some retreats uncover things like Viking settlements in Greenland, which is evidence of prior, natural climate change ie the LIA. This is also confirmed by retreats exposing other remains of human activity or just plant life that can be dated. Trees and plants are not well known for growing under ice and c) some glaciers are advancing.

Arctic sea ice is also one of those fascinating subjects. So ice mass vs ice extent, the effects of ocean currents in compacting that ice and the difference between predictions and observations. So some models predicted an ice-free Arctic already, which obviously hasn't happened. Plus also one of those topics where records aren't very long, ie the relatively recent abilitty to measure extent & mass by satellite or aircraft. But everything you wanted to know about Arctic ice can be found here-

https://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/

Technetium-99m has a half-life of approximately 6 hours. It is highly unlikely that could be coming from Sellafield.

My bad, I should have said Technetium-99 rather than Technetium-99m.

I think everyone has a right to participate in the conversation. And it creates a dilemma for anti-nuclear climate activists when leading climate scientists come out strongly in favor of nuclear development. I like to see the controversy. That's where change happens

But a huge problem with climate 'science' is the activists frequently deny the right to participate, or worse. Sceptics were rebranded as 'deniers' because scientists are supposed to be sceptics. Scientists are also supposed to be unbiased, and if they drift too far into activism, or don't make that activism clear then it damages the credibility of science in general. Which then becomes fun when as you say, some climate scientists come out on the side of nuclear.

Anti-nuclear organizations in the U.S. alone rake in more than $2.3 billion per year and the product they are selling is FUD, which I imagine is pretty cheap to manufacture. They are not going to give up such a lucrative business model easily or willingly.

Yep, which is the problem with the activists cited/promoted in this article. You can see how much they're making and paying themselves in their filings and astroturfing is a low cost/high margin business when you're running the operation from a small rented office above a wine bar. But it can also be money well spent, so $2.3bn is maybe 1/3rd to 1/4 of the amount given to UK 'renewables' subsidy seekers and then there's more money to be made promoting carbon credits and trading. But trillions being wasted to promote 'Net Zero' which will result in no measurable effect on temperatures.

It would be far better to invest that money in nuclear instead, especially as it's our money being wasted.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Reliable sources?

[And the downwards reflectance is roughly double the incoming solar energy absorbed at the surface.]

"I have to assume you're mistaken, or are kidding."

I'm not kidding, I could, of course, be mistaken. But it's also possible you didn't understand me, or that you reject the information I've seen.

"Insolation is rougly 800W/m^2 from that incoming solar energy."

Is that a flat-facing measure? I'm pretty sure the global average is more like 340W/m^2. But also, I said "solar energy absorbed at the surface". That doesn't include reflected light (not absorbed) nor high-altitude absorption (not at the surface). And not every Earth energy diagram includes the downward reflectance, because some are only tracking net values in and out. But here are samples which do include it:

https://oceanwiki.ethz.ch/lib/exe/detail.php?id=lecture1%3Aenergybudget&media=figures:global_mean_energy_budget.png (Solar absorbed at surface 161 W/m^2; reflected radiation absorbed at the surface 333 W/m^2)

And https://www.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-12/energy_balance.jpg (47 units solar heat value at surface; 98 units reflectance heat value at surface)

So, the reflectance heat value is 2.07 and 2.08 times the solar heat value at the surface in those diagrams--or like I said, roughly double.

"Albedo is an important factor in climate change because it determines the amount of energy from the Sun that the Earth absorbs,"

And combustion particulates have been increasing reflectance both directly (sulfur-oxides are highly reflective) and through contributing to cloud condensation. Which is going to be a problem we'll have to deal with as we scale down the combustion particulates.

https://www.science.org/content/article/changing-clouds-unforeseen-test-geoengineering-fueling-record-ocean-warmth

"Also you might find this article interesting-" https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/21/how-co2-both-warms-and-cools-our-atmosphere/

If the energy-stealing properties of oxygen and nitrogen work as described, then right there you have your mechanism for delayed radiation into space. But the first paragraph claims "Oxygen and nitrogen comprise 99% of our atmosphere. Those molecules do not absorb or emit radiation." That would mean if you have pure oxygen or pure nitrogen, they won't emit any infrared no matter how how much you heat them. That just seems wrong. I think I'm going to need to see some evidence for that claim.

"My bad, I should have said Technetium-99 rather than Technetium-99m."

Okay, yeah, Sellafield definitely discharges technetium-99. Like, hundreds of kilograms over the years. Tc-99 has a very weak beta decay energy, with no gamma emissions, so it's a low-impact radionuclide, but even so, it's really bad for public relations to be discharging it--even if the medical industry also does it. It's also kind of a waste, since Tc-99 is just one neutron capture away from becoming stable and valuable ruthenium 100.

"But a huge problem with climate 'science' is the activists frequently deny the right to participate, or worse. Sceptics were rebranded as 'deniers' "

I've seen both involved in the climate debate. To me, they are distinct. A skeptic acknowledges that warming could be occurring according to the mainstream view, but has not yet found the case convincing. A denier rejects the mainstream view and believes the warming model is false. But in popular perception, I expect many people don't see that distinction. In like manner, I happen to think the Big Bang theory is unconvincing and has some serious problems, but I don't consider myself a denier because I allow for the possibility that maybe the general theory could be salvaged and made workable with some modifications. Even so, I've definitely been called a denier by some people.

" $2.3bn is maybe 1/3rd to 1/4 of the amount given to UK 'renewables' subsidy seekers and then there's more money to be made promoting carbon credits and trading. But trillions being wasted to promote 'Net Zero' which will result in no measurable effect on temperatures. It would be far better to invest that money in nuclear instead, especially as it's our money being wasted."

I see good potential in a well-run carbon credits market, though I also think we don't have one of those yet. I also think there are good and bad ways to do nuclear, and I would rate any that are so expensive that they will actually drive energy prices up as also being an extravagant waste. On that count, I am just mystified by how the UK has been trying to do nuclear lately. Something has gone very wrong from the days when the UK was a world leader in nuclear science and engineering--including being the place where Triso fuel was invented. Oh well. At least other countries will benefit from that.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reliable sources?

And https://www.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-12/energy_balance.jpg (47 units solar heat value at surface; 98 units reflectance heat value at surface)

So, the reflectance heat value is 2.07 and 2.08 times the solar heat value at the surface in those diagrams--or like I said, roughly double.

Ah, those flux diagrams are a mess. So we absorb 47 'units' at the surface, yet the surface emitts 116, which is a massive cooling effect. But then it has 104 absorbed by the atmosphere somehow creating 156 units. Then assumes double the amount (98 units) radiated downwards and only 49 up. Reality is atmospheric emission is in a random direction, photons aren't (much) affected by gravity, so that energy won't sink. But the diagram's derived from this one-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#/media/File:The-NASA-Earth's-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg

which puts sensible units on the fluxes and gives an estimated 'imbalance' of 0.6W/m^2. Which then gets more interesting given-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#2011_reassessment

Instrument inaccuracies add a significant uncertainty in determining Earth's energy balance. The energy imbalance has been variously measured (during a deep solar minimum of 2005–2010) to be +0.58±0.15 W/m2, +0.60±0.17 W/m2 and +0.85 W/m2. Estimates from space-based measurements range +3–7 W/m2. SORCE/TIM's lower TSI value reduces this discrepancy by 1 W/m2. This difference between the new lower TIM value and earlier TSI measurements corresponds to a climate forcing of −0.8 W/m2, which is comparable to the energy imbalance.

Which is one of the joys of real climate science. Wiki, being Wiki puts the best spin with 'comparable to the energy imbalance' which is just one of those models vs observations things. Observations show variability in TSI, models assume constant. Then SORCE-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Radiation_and_Climate_Experiment

Launched in 2003 and was deactivated in 2020. So although we now have more accurate data, we don't have very much of it.. Especially as we're probably now entering the Eddy Minimum. Luckily other satellites and sensors are available.

And combustion particulates have been increasing reflectance both directly (sulfur-oxides are highly reflective) and through contributing to cloud condensation. Which is going to be a problem we'll have to deal with as we scale down the combustion particulates.

Or again how 'Global Warming' is a consequence of Clean Air Acts. Or a possible solution, ie injecting SOx to seed clouds.

But the first paragraph claims "Oxygen and nitrogen comprise 99% of our atmosphere. Those molecules do not absorb or emit radiation."

That's a context thing. Obviously they do because spectroscopy. But they're not active (or significantly active) in the IR wavelengths of interest to the global warming debate. Plus of course reality is complicated, ie Oxygen is reactive and becomes part of the 'problem', so H2O, CO2, ozone etc, as is nitrogen with NOx having effects. And then there's spectral variability in TSI, so more UV, more photochemistry happening. In climate science, those are all assigned a 'GWP' or Global Warming Potential for their effects. CO2 is 1 because we know it's a weak GHG.

But in popular perception, I expect many people don't see that distinction.

That's because an enormous amount of money and effort has been spent to stifle any debate. Question the accuracy of trees as thermometers, get branded a 'denier'. Then suggestions that 'deniers' should be locked up, or actual climate scientists losing their jobs for daring to challenge the 'consensus'. Science shouldn't rely on 'consensus', it should rely on evidence, and if there is scepticism, it means scientists haven't put forward a convincing argument or evidence.. Which gets frustrating given scientists may have done their viva voce to defend their thesis. If they never did that, it may explain why they can't take criticism. But it's also a situation that's getting worse with all the calls for governments to censor and ban 'misinformation'.

I see good potential in a well-run carbon credits market, though I also think we don't have one of those yet.

Nope. See-

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/08/26/rocketing-carbon-prices-push-up-energy-bills/

Converting the EU price to sterling,UK carbon prices were around £20/tonne in 2018, and now run at about £50/tonne.

Another reason why electricity prices have rocketed in the last few years.

With no real justification for those increases. Or why wind farmers are allowed to play, but 'zero' carbon nuclear is excluded from that casino.

On that count, I am just mystified by how the UK has been trying to do nuclear lately. Something has gone very wrong from the days when the UK was a world leader in nuclear science and engineering--including being the place where Triso fuel was invented. Oh well. At least other countries will benefit from that.

Agreed. But G.Brown Esq did have a brother working for EDF, and EDF desperately needed customers for their EPR and a general bail-out. So he flogged off Westinghouse and helped the French. Which is one of lifes little mysteries. Or tragedies. Despite the obvious advantages of nuclear, the only reactors to have gone critical in the last few decades have been the ones powering our Astutes. But at least that's left Rolls Royce with capability to develop their SMR.

[bombastic bob]

I hope it works well

The advantages of molten salt reactors include lower primary system pressure, which would help prevent corrosion cracking issues in the boilers. It would enable use of different kinds of materials that can be somewhat thinner and less expensive than a PWR system that likely has pressure above 2000 psi to avoid boiling at temperatures above 600 degrees F. Molten salt may also have less danger from coolant leaks, as leaking salt would likely turn into a solid as it cools. Lack of water in the primary might also limit activation of corrosion byproducts (like Fe59 becoming Co60 as rust particles pass through an intense neutron flux).

Obviously would have its own unique problems but these have prob'ly been worked out for the most part.

Anyway I hope they can make such reactors "modular enough" to make rapid construction plausible and low operating costs likely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I hope it works well

The main advantage is that you can keep burning gas whilst promising to use molten salt / liquid sodium / he3 fusion / unicorn farts.

I'm sure Google et al would be happy to buy the power (after the govt susidises building the plant so the cost is "competitive"), but all of these are just smoke and delaying tactics, to hide what is really going on: more fossil fuel burnt for AI, spiralling power prices, and incoming shortages and blackouts for actual people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I hope it works well

The main problem they have is that the solutions for the corrosive effects of pumping a hot fluoride salt around have all been developed and presumably patented by the Chinese because they DID invest the equivalent of several billion USD in development which the US did not because they liked the model that produced plutonium for bombs better.

If I read it correctly, this appears to be a pebble reactor which is also quite a safe approach, but making the pebbles is expensive so I'm not sure where this is going to end up cost wise.

[MachDiamond]

"ORNL's Aircraft Reactor Experiment was first to demonstrate the viability of a molten salt reactor. While the design proved too heavy – and presumably too dangerous – for flight, just over ten years later a scaled-up version of the reactor went critical, operating for four years until 1969."

Alvin Weinberg's little secret was to pretend the work was for an aircraft reactor, but that was just to get the funding to work on MSR's. Putting a reactor on an airplane was never thought to be viable. Not just the weight, but the absolute craziness of flying such a thing over people.

The ORNL work doesn't look like it could be built in a factory and shipped whole to a location. A big part of making it viable to use production line techniques is to commission enough reactors for it to make sense in creating tooling for parts in higher volume (there's a trade off between part price and the cost of tooling for many things). I've never worked on systems on the scale of a power plant so I don't know what production rate would make sense, but there's plenty of people that can make those estimations and then it's down to shipping the bits to the location just like a pre-packed home to arrive as the parts are needed once all of the site preparation is done. If the build rate is too low, there's no point in coming up with something that's mass production ready as by the time the 3rd one would be built, it would be a 10 revs out of date. There's nothing wrong with iterating a design as things are learned, but that's different than changing 50% of the design from one build to the next with nothing less incremental in between due to the span of time between them.

[Anonymous Coward]

… if they can ship a Space Shittle to Texas …..

[disillusioned fanboi]

Shipping container sized

Yes for me modular means "no larger than a standard shipping container". Some SMR designs promise a shipping container but then its a non-standard monstrosity.

Once each module can fit in a standard shipping container who cares how many you need. Equally the site requires lots of non-nuclear preparation.

The interesting question is whether the modules can be shipped back to the manufacturer at their end of life, or do they have to be buried on-site for 300 years...

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Shipping container sized

The interesting question is whether the modules can be shipped back to the manufacturer at their end of life, or do they have to be buried on-site for 300 years...

Theoretically, yes. Along with how SMRs can be refuelled. Plus back to the definition of container and nuclear stuff is already shipped by rail, which gave us fun videos demonstrating running trains into the containers to show they wouldn't leak. Plus they wouldn't necessarily need to be buried, just left somewhere to decay quietly to a safe level.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Shipping container sized

Perhaps some modularising of components.

The radioactive box

The cooling water pumping box

The electricity generating box

The grid connection box

For easier maintenance and separation of risk.

Hopefully it won’t look like the Port Los Angeles…

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Shipping container sized

The Kairos FHR vessel is currently spec'd to have a diameter of 2.4 meters. It might require a special transport container, but it should be possible to get it into the standard form factor. Kairos is also demonstrating how the power plant construction can be accelerated with the use of 3-D printed forms for the concrete. The 316H material in the vessel will undergo neutron activation, and it will take about a year for the radiation levels to drop to a point where the vessel can be recycled. They are planning to have a duty cycle of around 20 years for each reactor vessel. Replacing them on a short cycle like that greatly simplifies showing regulators they can resist corrosion and radiation damage for their rated service life. It also means any updates or improvements to the reactor design can propagate through their existing fleet of power plants, and it means the power plant can last as long as its structure can, and It greatly simplifies plant decommissioning,

[MachDiamond]

Re: Shipping container sized

"Once each module can fit in a standard shipping container who cares how many you need."

There's a big question on whether that sort of constraint is reasonable or not. I don't think it would be a big deal to fabricate some of the larger parts on site from components that are cut and drilled off-site that won't fit in a shipping container. The plants aren't going to be cheap builds no matter what so if step one is to build a big shed on the site to have a place to make some of the big pieces, so be it. Perhaps the foundation or whole building becomes something that will be used later as part of the complex once the reactor is done and ready to go hot.

[Anonymous Coward]

As described this is not a molten fuel salt reactor like the ORNL experiment, but rather a salt cooled triso solid fuel reactor.

It would thus probably produce the usual amounts hard to reprocess spent fuel pellets with lower burnup that comes with solid oxide fuels, compared to molten fuel salt designs.

[Ken G]

I assume this will be a Beta release

So that Google can discontinue if it's not profitable?

Google graveyard

[codejunky]

Re: I assume this will be a Beta release

@Ken G

"So that Google can discontinue if it's not profitable?"

That would be a good reason for letting the private businesses get on with investment. Unlike government 'investment' it generally has to be worth doing.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: I assume this will be a Beta release

That would be a good reason for letting the private businesses get on with investment. Unlike government 'investment' it generally has to be worth doing

"AI"..

[codejunky]

Re: I assume this will be a Beta release

@CrazyOldCatMan

"AI"..

Exactly!!! Its kinda like the browser wars if you remember that!

[Ken G]

Re: I assume this will be a Beta release

Yes, I see your point. Abandoning nuclear powerplants is a (check's notes) good thing.

[codejunky]

Re: I assume this will be a Beta release

@Ken G

"Yes, I see your point. Abandoning nuclear powerplants is a (check's notes) good thing."

I sense you are trying to claim some kind of problem somewhere... but not actually saying what you think the problem is.

If its that there will be cheap energy generation available because a company sells off what it doesnt need or goes bankrupt then yeah!! Even government should be just about smart enough to get their hands on the very thing we are short of because of government!

[Pascal Monett]

Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

Thorium reactors have the advantage of passive security, and being able to recyle the nuclear waste of PWR reactors as well.

We need Thorium reactors to clean up our bad choices, even if/when fusion comes into being.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

Yes, but I don't think this is a Thorium reactor; I think it's a pebble reactor with molten salt as transport medium, which means you still have the low use of fuel and associated waste disposal issues.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

Thorium has a tight neutron economy, and protactinium 233 gobbles up neutrons. So you either need a supplemental source of neutrons, or you need to remove the protactinium 233 from the core while it undergoes transition into U-233. The reports about the China thorium reactor indicate it is breeding protactinium, and they demonstrated full-power refueling earlier this year, which sounds like they were inserting the U-233 from the protactinium. If that's correct, that means they are doing protactinium separation, and that means anyone who has one of these reactors will be able to use it to produce weapons-grade U-233--the best fuel for a suitcase nuke. And from the international patents they have filed, it looks like they mean to export this reactor to the world market. We can't stop them, but we might be able to beat them to market with better, cheaper, safer reactors, and the Kairos design looks like a good contender for that. Also, thorium reactors would only be able to consume around 1% of what's in our legacy spent fuel. Molten salt fast reactors would be able to consume more like 96%, plus any surplus or decommissioned uranium or plutonium bomb fuel, plus the neptunium wastes we still have left over from our Cold War bomb production days, plus enriched, or natural, or depleted uranium. And western nations are already developing molten salt fast reactors, while it looks like China is not.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

"will be able to use it to produce weapons-grade U-233--the best fuel for a suitcase nuke."

There's just the problem of high energy gammas one gets from U233 that can be seen miles off.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

"There's just the problem of high energy gammas one gets from U233 that can be seen miles off."

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it does a clean alpha decay with no gamma emission. An very small percent of the time, it will spontaneously fission, and some fission products release gamma rays, but the amount would be very tiny. A human body would be a brighter source of gamma rays.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

> Thorium reactors have the advantage of passive security, and being able to recyle the nuclear waste of PWR reactors as well.

Fast neutron reactors are (or "might be") able to reuse and reduce the nuclear waste of PWR reactors. Thorium has no particular part of that, it can be done just as easily with plutonium/uranium - and we have a lot of it to get rid of.

Have a look at https://www.moltexenergy.com/reduces-waste/ to see what wasteburning looks like.

If you read carefully and look at the numbers, whilst this is undoubtedly a great thing, and reduces some of the problematic waste a lot, there is still quite a large nuclear waste residue in the end. But probably far less than what you will get with Kairos using triso solid fuel in a once through cycle, which is only increasing the problem, not reducing it.

(Nor does Thorium offer any special security against a state who wishes to make bombs, and has some patience. Like Iran)

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

"...Kairos using triso solid fuel in a once through cycle, which is only increasing the problem, not reducing it."

Increasing the volume of a problem is not the same as increasing the problem. Yes, the Triso spent fuel will be somewhat bulkier (despite higher burnup) because of the many layers of cladding material. But bulk is not the problem with legacy spent fuel. The problem is the isotope containment is not very good. Some of the pellets are damaged and leaking even before they come out of the reactor, and the cladding could fail in a fire, or with exposure to steam, or even if it simply loses cooling in the first roughly three months out of the reactor. Triso is far more robust, chemically inert, and heat-resistant, so nearly all the hazard comes from getting close to it without shielding. That is a very manageable hazard.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Thorium reactors are the future - until fusion

"We need Thorium reactors to clean up our bad choices"

There's that and then applications such as radioactive Molybdenum for cancer treatments that would be possible.

As I've learned more about fusion, the less I'm convinced that it's viable. It works in the sun/stars but the energy density is counter-intuitively low. Stars are so large that the energy density (J/M^3) doesn't have to be large. For a reactor on Earth, the energy density needs to be much higher to be useful which makes containment (all sorts) much more difficult.

[Nick_Geary]

Flipping the Script

With traditional nuclear, the upfront cost was huge while the fuel was cheap. It looks like Kairos has a good chance of reversing that. They've already built three full-scale reactor vessels, and they've shaved months off the build time with each iteration. They built their third unit in the UK to test Sheffield's electron beam welding (shortened some weld times from roughly a week down to a few minutes--with better weld quality) and even with shipping from the UK, it took around 4 months from design finalization (they modify the design after each build) to installation in Tennessee. Their full-sized reactor vessel is made out of inch-thick standard 316H stainless and can be assembled with common metalforming equipment, so setting up each production line should be cheap. The vessel canister weighs less than two 40-foot shipping containers (lighter than an average wind turbine blade now), and if they met their objective to hold assembly cost for Unit 3 to 20% of the finished cost (the rest being materials costs) that would be around a 50X reduction in cost per MW capacity relative to a traditional gigascale high-pressure vessel. The fuel, on the other hand, will initially be the most expensive ever used for civilian power (Navy fuel will still be a lot more expensive). Early estimates are around $225,000 per burnable kg for the enriched fuel and Triso / pebble fabrication. But each kg burned will produce around 22 million kWH of heat or around 8.4 million kWh of electricity. So the fuel share of the energy production cost would be around a penny per kWH for heat, or 2.7 cents per kWh for electricity. And High Assay Triso fuel production is exactly the sort of automated process which should be able to realize major cost reduction when scaled up for mass production--and that future cost reduction will benefit every one of their reactors.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Flipping the Script

Their full-sized reactor vessel is made out of inch-thick standard 316H stainless and can be assembled with common metalforming equipment, so setting up each production line should be cheap.

China's also doing (or claiming to be doing) some interesting things with exotic forms of steel. Plus things like this-

https://interestingengineering.com/military/china-pistol-sized-vacuum-tube-warfare-tech

Squeezing hundreds or even thousands of tubes into a radar has always been a headache, but Chinese engineers have shrunk a high-power X-Ku band TWT to just 20 millimetres (0.8 inches) in height – less than half the thickness of comparable Western models – with a boost in performance, reported SCMP.

China's come a long way from making cheap toys, to toys we might prefer they didn't have. But is a numbers game and China has more people, and invests heavily in education and R&D.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flipping the Script

> ... and invests heavily in education and R&D.

Typically sneaky, dishonest and communistic, then.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Flipping the Script

[Their full-sized reactor vessel is made out of inch-thick standard 316H stainless]

My goof. I misread 1.6 in my notes as 1.0. So the vessel wall thickness is actually 1.6" or 4 cm.

"China's also doing (or claiming to be doing) some interesting things with exotic forms of steel."

Also some interesting ceramic coatings to combat tellurium corrosion. The Kairos design won't need that (the tellurium remains locked in the fuel) but the liquid-fuel molten salt designs might benefit. I think China has also pulled into the lead for having the fastest and cheapest method for pulling uranium out of seawater, but such leads typically don't last very long. It's usually only a year or two before the next significant advancement.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flipping the Script

It does make me wonder if using triso is a bit of a subscription fuel play, when you compare it to molten salt fuel, that looks a lot cheaper to make, a lot easier to make (i.e. you don't have to buy it from the US or X), with easy-ish reuse and higher burnup possible. Triso does seem to be a bit of a US favorite at the moment.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Flipping the Script

"It does make me wonder if using triso is a bit of a subscription fuel play"

Kairos is probably not thinking in those terms, at least at first. Their business plan is to finance their builds, to build all their own plants, make their own fuel, and then to own and operate the plants, and make their revenue from selling energy and possibly nuclear products. The subscription model might be more important for export reactors, especially if it involves return of the used fuel. That would be good for establishing long-term international ties, and good for reducing customer anxiety about what to do with the used fuel.

"when you compare it to molten salt fuel, that looks a lot cheaper to make, a lot easier to make (i.e. you don't have to buy it from the US or X), with easy-ish reuse and higher burnup possible."

The higher burnup would only apply to breeder reactors--either thorium or molten salt fast reactors. The downsides of liquid fuel are a bigger corrosion problem, the extra cost of having chemical-processing capability at every reactor, and having to manage and store multiple streams of radionuclides coming out of the reactor. So, cheaper fuel, but more expensive plant, equipment, and operating costs. With Triso, there would be no processing on site and all the radionuclides would remain locked in the fuel.

"Triso does seem to be a bit of a US favorite at the moment."

Some improvements in manufacturing have made it remarkably robust. In the version of Triso that Kairos is planning to use, they characterized the failure rate by taking samples up to 19% burnup, and then subjected them to 3000 deg. F for ten days, and found a rate of less than ten failures per million grains of fuel--with nearly all of those failures being caused by some residual production defects--so even that small rate could be improved even further. That is a much more severe test than the fuel is ever likely to experience, and it doesn't even include the added containment protections of the grains being embedded in tough multi-layer balls, with the balls floating in molten salt (which aggressively binds to cesium, strontium, and iodine), inside a sealed reactor vessel. The molten salt carrier also means shock loading, stack loading, surface abrasion, bridging, hot-spots, and control rod jamming are effectively eliminated (all being problems that previous gas-cooled Biso and Triso reactors had).

Being a super tough fuel will also mean it will not be practical to take it apart to do post-processing. That's bad from the standpoint of being able to use the spent fuel in future fast reactors, but good from the standpoint of strong containment and very low proliferation risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flipping the Script

> they characterized the failure rate by taking samples up to 19% burnup

Interesting. I must have a closer look at it.

> That would be good for establishing long-term international ties, and good for reducing customer anxiety about what to do with the used fuel.

Well perhaps before Trump I and Trump II. At this point you would be barking mad to buy US reactors with a US fuel subscription.

One of the solid plusses of solar vs nuclear or wind is you are safer against supplier adversaries.. While it is easy for your supplier-adversary to remotely destroy all the invertors, wind turbine blades, gearboxes and generators, it is not really possible to destroy the solar panel part, which is the bulk of the time and effort, and so you can replace all the invertors and bring it all online again reasonably quickly following a supplier malware attack.

(this is topical as I have being arguing the need for extra HRC fuses in various parts of the solar system that the regulations do not require**, specifically to limit the scope of destruction that can be caused by a malicious firmware attack from the supplier's state. The reason this is contentious is that it admits that your supplier is an adversary who can do this, and that might rather change your choice of the lowest cost supplier, and it's a can of worms they'd rather not open.

** Also subsystem isolators, internet cutouts and diversity of invertor country of origin within each system.)

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Flipping the Script

"At this point you would be barking mad to buy US reactors with a US fuel subscription."

By the time Kairos gets into the international market, I expect they will also have international production capability. Also, Kairos is designing their reactors to work with a range of fuel types (with varied kinds of enriched uranium, MOX, and thorium being considered, either individually or in blends), and they are likely to use mixed fuel types while developing new fuels, so the fuel specifications are not exacting. There will likely be a number of international suppliers who could make workable fuel balls in roughly the right diameter. Also, it would not be as barking mad as buying US weapons systems, or actually offering purchasing pledges to appease Trump, yet here we are.

"One of the solid plusses of solar vs nuclear or wind is you are safer against supplier adversaries."

I imagine inherently safe forms of nuclear would also be at very low risk from malicious action.

"it is easy for your supplier-adversary to remotely destroy all the invertors, wind turbine blades, gearboxes and generators,..."

I am not familiar with how this would work. I knew wind turbines could be remotely turned out of the wind and braked, and that remote operators can use electric motors to spin up the windmills in some designs, but I thought over-rev braking was automatic and autonomous. At the risk of drifting off-topic, can the safety systems be remotely disabled? Would remote wind power sabotage require extreme conditions to work, or could it do damage under normal or even idle conditions?

[Fred Flintstone]

Re: Flipping the Script

At the risk of drifting off-topic, can the safety systems be remotely disabled? Would remote wind power sabotage require extreme conditions to work, or could it do damage under normal or even idle conditions?

Going with the drift for the moment, you guys have made the perfect argument to implement wind turbine safety systems along the same lines as industrial ASD: totally independent. Better an automated kill switch which requires a manual restart than something that can be abused for large scale destruction..

[MachDiamond]

Re: Flipping the Script

"The downsides of liquid fuel are a bigger corrosion problem, "

Isn't that mostly solved with Hastaloy? It makes me wonder that since the reactor isn't a massive high-pressure vessel if there would be enough lifetime to build multiple reactors on one site and refurbish one when required with the others taking the load and sharing some common infrastructure such as power conversion, sub station, etc. The level of contamination and how difficult that may be to work with over a given time frame will need to be sorted. While reactors aren't cheap, neither is the infrastructure to take the power from the site and distribute it in addition to all of the right-of-ways that have to be planned. Build one reactor and when it's up and running, start building number 2 and so forth. Since all of that takes time, #2 should be available long before #1 needs to be rebuilt if corrosion is an issue. If there needs to be more off-time for decay chains to work their way down the ladder, perhaps unit #3 would start to be built at the point #1 is taken off-line to take over for #2 when it's due and from there it's a 3-field rotation.

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Flipping the Script

"Isn't that mostly solved with Hastaloy?"

Depends on what you mean by "mostly". Hastelloy-N is one of the best-performing alloys we've found so far, but some tests in some conditions found intergranular crack progression rates from tellurium attack of around 1 mm per year at high temperatures. That's seriously bad, and though it is the worst we have found, we don't know that it is the worst that is possible. On the other hand, under different conditions, the crack progression rate was trivial. Managing the redox potential of the salt helped. Adding small amounts of technetium to the metal seemed to help. Niobium in the salt sometimes helped. Argon sometimes helped and sometimes made things worse. And as fission products accumulate in the salt, the salt chemistry changes. And with neutron activation, additives can change into other isotopes. As a practical matter, managing the corrosion will likely not be a big deal. From a regulatory standpoint, the large number of changing variables with complex interactions creates a qualification nightmare.

"It makes me wonder that since the reactor isn't a massive high-pressure vessel if there would be enough lifetime to build multiple reactors on one site and refurbish one when required with the others taking the load"

That's basically the Kairos plan (with Thorcon also doing something similar). They plan to standardize on a 75/200 MW(e/th) reactor, and have at least two vessels feeding one steam turbine and generator. And then each 20 years or so, they'll replace each vessel, and they are trying to design to make the swap operation as quick and easy as possible. Since the salt in the secondary loop is basically the same as solar salt, they could also bolt on thermal storage to augment the running reactor(s) while one is being replaced. The short service life makes it a lot easier to get regulatory qualification, and it also allows each plant to have a pathway for ongoing reactor design improvements. It also means each plant would have an indefinite service life. The cost of their reactor vessel is likely to be less than the cost of a couple of burnable kg. of their fuel, so it would be a cheap consumable--with each retired vessel ready for recycling in about a year. Triso in Flibe molten salt would also be a particularly safe fuel for marine applications, so I think there could be good potential for offshore power plants. For those, the whole plant could be swapped out just by bringing in a new plant and switching the grid connections. With good synchronization, it might even be possible to do that without interrupting power.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flipping the Script

If they get this right I can see the marine applications happen quickly. I think there are already plans for nuclear powered transport ships which would be both an absolutely massive cut in emissions and a substantial reduction in fuel costs.

The interesting thing is that you could design ships around it, but your average container ship already has all the space you'd ever need for a retrofit: its fuel tanks..

[Nick_Geary]

Re: Flipping the Script

When they were doing site excavation for the Kairos demo plant where an old diffusion enrichment facility used to stand, they encountered a lot of buried power cables, cooling pipes, broken tools, and some demolition debris from another site. And while that was annoying and slowed them down, the nightmare would have been if they had dug up something of historical, or archaeological, or Native cultural significance. Or encountered an unknown geologic fault. Or found some rare burrowing creature. There's a lot less of that to deal with out in the ocean.

You can buy a remarkably large, double-hull supertanker, brand new, for only around $100 million, and a power station hull would be much smaller than that. Robotic welders and material handlers have revolutionized ship building. And we already have lots of advanced ship yard production capability around the world. No need to set up a special factory just to crank out nuclear power stations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flipping the Script

AFAIK the Chinese have been focusing on coatings for Hastelloy et al to reduce the corrosive impact of fluoride salts. If you start pumping hyper corrosive materials around at some 700ºC even Hastelloy needs a bit more help. So we have China for coatings, US Flybe for the right fuel mix and who else? Gosh, if we only had international trade without tariffs..

[IGnatius T Foobar !]

Renewable != Sustainable

When it comes to large amounts of power in the long term, nothing beats nuclear. Nothing. Wind and solar are cute but they don't scale, and they won't scale, no matter how many flatulent unicorns you throw at them. Nuclear is clean, reliable, sustainable, scalable, and the obvious answer.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Renewable != Sustainable

"When it comes to large amounts of power in the long term, nothing beats nuclear."

For baseline power, I agree. For security, I disagree as it become a single point failure with SMR's being a pipe dream.

I was happy to learn about heat pumps with solar panel power inputs. My chest freezer is run on solar and I have nearly all the pieces to power my evaporative cooler with solar. A long term goal is to have my essential needs covered with solar/battery so while movie night might be on hold, the food in the fridge and freezers will be fine along with HVAC. I can run my amateur radio gear on solar panels. I see having solar as "freedom watts". To cut me off would take a visit to my house and a deliberate act. For the local power company to cut me off for their own reasons or somebody else's or by mistake is a keyboard entry. A local Boy Racer hitting a power pole can be another reason the power goes off and that's happened before a couple of times and can take a day for repair crews to get that replaced.

My chest freezer is currently full to the brim. It would be expensive to have to bin everything in it and start over so it's nice it's on solar/battery and fails over to the grid if those drop out. When the weather cools off a bit, I'll be putting a bunch of stuff through the freeze dryer so there's room in the freezer again.

[Tom 38]

Re: Renewable != Sustainable

Wind and solar are cute but they don't scale, and they won't scale, no matter how many flatulent unicorns you throw at them

That's such a daft claim. Wind lacks predictability - it might not be windy when you want power. Solar lacks round the clock generation, but is entirely predictable in generation.

They both scale perfectly, as is clearly evidenced by Gridwatch. The UK has been investing and scaling renewables, and we've gone from 2.1 GW of wind and solar in 2012, to 10.9 GW in 2024. Over the same period, gas and coal generation has dropped from 25 GW to 8.4 GW. Nuclear over the same period has gone from 7.5 GW to 4.4 GW. They have scaled because we've built more of them, and built storage to better utilise their generation. Classic horizontal scaling and caching.

The UK has spent ~£45bn investing in wind farms. In 2012, we started investing in Hinkley Point C, a 3,200 MWe nuclear plant. The estimated final completion cost for this project is £48bn, and they hope it will come on line in 2029. This year, Sizewell C finally got the green light, another 3,200 MWe reactor, estimated final cost £38bn. To just do nuclear generation, we'd need another 10 plants, which is unaffordable and would take another 30 years. Renewables are cheaper and easier to build, operate and decommission than any other form of energy generation, and don't require huge government investment and guarantees.

We need both nuclear and renewables. We don't need gas and coal. There is no argument to building "just renewables", and complaining about renewables when talking about nuclear is missing the point.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Renewable != Sustainable

" Wind lacks predictability - it might not be windy when you want power."

I believe the key to using wind is to have uses for the power that don't mind being intermittent. A tremendous amount of power is used to make ammonia. Besides direct use, it's a very useful precursor for many other chemicals. The need is to make so many liters per unit time more than based on time of day so as long as there's enough wind in a week/month/quarter, wind might be a good input where it's lousy for grid applications until/unless something like EV's can be signaled that due to lots of wind, power is cheap so start charging. The US has a network of ammonia pipelines so where good wind resources intersect those pipelines, that would be a good place to plop down an automated ammonia plant and turbine. An adjacent battery box would allow for graceful startup and shut down. The pipelines are also in the midst of farming country where a lot of the ammonia gets used.

Using solar to run my chest freezer is not that hard since I know when and how much power I need for it within brackets. I didn't account for the most off-nominal case since I still have a fail over to the grid and adding panels and batteries starts getting very expensive for less and less return.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Instruction

Kairos is also setting up a simulator at the University of Tennessee to train technicians to operate the facility.

Mr Homer J. Simpson