Amazon-backed X-energy sweet talks investors into another $700M for small modular reactor dream Amazon-backed nuclear energy startup X-energy says it has booked orders for 144 small modular reactors (SMRs) which will eventually deliver over 11 gigawatts of power, assuming that they actually get built. And investors continue to support this vision. On Monday, X-energy revealed that it had gotten Jane Street and a slew of …
The 2,000 lawsuits over every aspect of them will be so easy to get past then. Good thing they're small.
/sarc
Now I wonder if the real reason for SMR's is so they can be built faster than lawsuits can be funded and filed. Most distribution architecture has been designed to utilize large generators at a few discrete locations rather than small ones all over the place.
"Utilise Helium as a coolant, an expensive gas that is getting rarer by the day"
If you have something that decays via alpha particles, that's freshly minted He minus a couple of electrons.
Salt as a coolant isn't much fun. It's fine if its kept liquid, but if it freezes in the pipes, it's a bugger to clear out.
The problem that both X-Energy and Kairos have is where to get their very special fuel enriched to higher levels than normal commercial fuel. Currently the only commercial supplier is in Russia, which is problematic.
American and European suppliers are reluctant to build plants to supply this as there aren't currently any customers for it. It's a chicken and egg problem.
And of course from a customer perspective there is the issue of vendor lock-in with proprietary fuel designs.
Reactors using normal commercial fuel (low enriched or natural unenriched uranium) don't have this problem.
X-Energy? I thought all things X were Elon's country?
Canada will be there first.
https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/status-of-new-nuclear-projects/darlington/
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