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Comment by tinco | Hacker News Reader

Oh that's awkward. Worse than not being 75 times as efficient, and instead only twice, is this other quote:

In addition, it now specifies that the design “does not reduce existing stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel” or use them as its fuel source.

To me that was the most inspiring aspect of this idea. I'd still one day hope to have a nuclear reactor in my back yard, but to realise that dream we've got to keep the science as well as the engineering on point.

If nuclear scientists goof like this, it does not inspire confidence to the public and all we will end up is projects like Shoreham.

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> If nuclear scientists goof like this, it does not inspire confidence to the public and all we will end up is projects like Shoreham.

To be fair, the claims were made by grad students. Good on them for experimenting, hoping, testing, and failing. The true calamity would have never been to test.

Their failure is not a reflection of their character, ambition, or talent. Well perhaps a little bit their talent. But they could've done like many (most, arguably) grad students and worked on some fundamentally useless but "safe" path to ongoing work in the Ivory tower.

So let's hope they keep trying to identify and test the hard problems whose resolution would improve life for humans, and do better next time.

>Smith thought the claims for the technology were bogus, based on the physics, notified the MIT hierarchy, and launched an inquiry. The magazine quoted him, “I said this is obviously incorrect based on basic physics.”

Grad students should know the basic physics of their respective subfields.

At the very least, if it doesn't match up with the basic physics, to do the legwork to show why they are right and the apparent contradictions with basic physics are incorrect.

Shoreham was a project with a lot of potential and a terrible outcome. Specifically, it was a nuclear plant on Long Island. It was a nuclear project that could actually pay for itself, even with the increased costs and safety concerns of the late 1980s.

Long Island is literally an island. Power generation costs are currently insane, and have always been insane, because it's expensive to move fuel onto the island. Nuclear really made sense, economically. (It's much cheaper to move fuel rods across the sound than to do the same with liquified gas.)

Because Long Island is also 100% completely impossible to evacuate in the event of a Fukushima-grade accident, NIMBYs killed the project. Unfortunately the project was killed after it was constructed. The entire construction cost is still being paid by electrical consumers today, decades later. It never served a single hour in revenue service.

Honestly, I don't think these two things detract from the idea that much. The cost and safety are, in my opinion, the biggest benefit. The amount of nuclear waste in the world is actually fairly small, and long term disposal isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be. The fact that these reactors could potentially be built cheaply and are immune to melting down is the real selling point.

The problem is with the psychology of this. If the scientists are incorrect on the fuel efficiency, what else are they incorrect on? Maybe it can melt down, maybe it can't be built cheaply. It's just fuel for fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Shoreham was closed because the oil industry spread propaganda to activate and empower a NIMBY crowd. It had very little to do with real risks.

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