Small modular nuclear reactors may help polluting industries reduce emissions

One interesting side of this is that it admits extremely cheap "assurance" storage. That is: if one has a fuel to heat the thermal store when needed, then this can provide an assured source of power in the event of very rare prolonged outages that deplete the usual store. The marginal capital cost of adding this capability could be a factor of 3 less than that of providing dedicated gas turbines (using hydrogen, say) for that assurance.

Many of these have operated in and around the most densely populated ports and cities in the world.

I helped operate 3 of them. No issues.

In addition oversight for Nuclear is WAY better. If there is a breach we're way more likely to know, rather than wondering why everyone in a certain Indiana town is getting a rare form of cancer from an unreported chemical spill.

Risk tolerance wise, I would rather have one of these running next door, than having a steel plant 20 miles away...

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/...

https://apnews.com/article/27ee93094ce81e2522bd495138db9554

https://apnews.com/article/61b2a91a8e4042f1a8d43e734551f159

This is founded on the proposition that everyone trying to push ecological costs somewhere else, somewhere "over there", can be way more dangerous to human wellbeing than the occasional natural disaster or accident.

Your trust idea is a good one, maybe with some insurance added, but it really does impact the economics of the project.

That said, nuclear reactors as thermal generators are a great idea, particularly for e.g. cement manufacturing, which is a huge producer of greenhouse gasses. This is one area where I support nuclear over wind/solar.

I hope this works!

There is nonlinear decrease in the cost per unit when the number of units sold increases. The total cost per unit depends on how many units are produced.

If you process the waste from few units, the disposal fee per unit is very expensive. If you sell thousands of units, you can plan for very large scale standardize disposal procedure that drives down price to fraction what it for small number of units.

Customers don't want to pay for startup risk. So first 100 - 500 units sold could be too expensive.

You could solve this problem by selling the company to someone big, like Berkshire Hathaway Energy. They have shoulders to take the risk and money to do the capital investments when the time comes.

Which has, of course, long since been spent. When anything is done, we will be taxed for it. $12B was handed over to contractors for work done on Yucca Mountain.

Wikipedia:

> "US court of appeals ruled that nuclear utilities may stop paying into the nuclear waste ... The fee ended May 16, 2014."

> "Lacking an operating repository, the federal government initially paid utility companies somewhere between $300 and $500 million per year in compensation for failing to comply with the contract it signed to take the spent nuclear fuel by 1998. For the ten years after 2015 it is estimated to cost taxpayers $24 billion in payments from the Judgment Fund. The Judgment Fund is not subject to budget rules..."

So, $47b was collected from ratepayers for extra-high-cost power, and sent to the govt. Now, taxpayers are paying out $2.4 billion, every year, directly to nuke operators, who pocket it. ($2.4b would buy a pretty big solar farm.)

When something is determined to do about the waste, there will be no nuke ratepayers left, at several times the cost of renewables -- or operators, except those kept open to collect their $2.4b. Instead, taxpayers will pick up the bill. Again.