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Comment by natch | Hacker News Reader

What are the decommissioning costs?

Who will pay for the cost overruns?

Just one of the big problems with nuclear is that it is very centralized and takes individual control away from the consumers, who foot the bill through increased taxes and fees, and who could otherwise be using their money to finance options that give them individual control over their energy costs.

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This reactor prototype has gotten private investment, because it is both comparatively affordable (hundreds of millions instead of tens of billions of dollars) and it will likely be profitable to license the technology to commercial plant operators. It is unlikely that commercial reactors would require public funding.

Decommissioning costs should be negligible because the reactors won't generate radioactive fission byproducts. The reactor chamber is designed for a 10 year lifespan and easy replacement. The old chamber is slightly radioactive (due to neutron bombardment) for a few decades, which is much less of a problem than the highly radioactive waste from fission plants that has to be stored for thousands of years.

Yeah no thanks... at those prices this is still centralized and the costs of corruption and “few decades” decommissioning after a mere 10 years of usefulness will still be passed along through government subsidies and taxation. I’d rather just install solar and have control of these costs myself.

So you say the chamber has a 10 year lifespan but has been bombarded with radiation for a few decades. Do you see any contradiction there? How does that work.

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