TerraPower in deal with Meta for eight Natrium 345 MW nuclear plants | Hacker News Reader

TerraPower in deal with Meta for eight Natrium 345 MW nuclear plants

neutronbytes.com

114 pointsmpweiher104 comments

Their first demonstration reactor is scheduled to go online in 2031. But they’re going to build 8 production reactors, with all the regulatory hurdles, in any reasonable length of time? Right.

The headline should probably be, “Meta invests in nuclear startup” and leave it there. My guess is this deal is quietly swept under the rug when the first reactor fails to go fully online by 2032.

While Wyoming is a demonstration plant, it is a demonstration plant of exactly the reactor they plan to build in series.

And they have received NRC approval.

https://thebreakthrough.org/press/release-the-nrc-issues-con...

So not sure what additional regulatory hurdles you see. Can you enlighten us?

From your link,

> TerraPower must still complete construction, submit an operating license application, and satisfy all applicable safety and regulatory requirements before loading fuel and beginning operations.

Basically the built plant must pass a rigorous inspection before starting operations. But for that the plant needs to be built!

And built well, which has been a source of big delays in the past.

And I’m sure no corners will be cut!

Many times the reason for this was that the regulations changed during the build necessitating parts to be rebuilt

Sounds like people building it found a way to cheap out that was technically within regulation.

I mean that doesn't sound like very big hurdles. It is an inspection of a completed reactor to make sure it wasn't managed and built like trash. Every factory and business and powerplant is subject to an inspection before it can operate. Even most residentual homes require an inspection before people can live in it.

It is what typically all reactors get stuck on for years - or often decades.

I doubt it.

There used to be separate construction and operating permits, and sometimes you got the building permit, built the plant and then never got the operating license.

This has now been streamlined with a combined construction/operating license. If you built what you promised to build, you get to operate it.

Can you give an example of a plant that has been built under this streamlined process and what kind of timeline it had?

The only recent nuclear buildouts that I personally have knowledge of are expansions to existing plants and thus have a lower barrier to get going.

Since it was just released, that’s pretty hard to do eh?

I’m familiar with the reactors built on other previous ‘expedited’ processes that ended up being anything but fast. We’ll see how it goes eh?

If it was just released, then your claims about it are entirely hypothetical and best-case-scenario. Of course we have to "see how it goes" - there's no merit but hopefulness to your stance...

A change in regulations is not a meritless argument, it's useful information

Lol, that every prior process has gone this way (including ‘express’ processes) surely has no value? Uh huh.

We are literally talking about the fact that every prior process has been mired in regulatory slowdown.

Amazing.

We were talking specifically about the problem of a finished nuclear power plant, built successfully to the specifications in the build permit, not getting an operating license (or taking very long to get it).

With the combined license, that case simply cannot happen, no matter what else happens.

This is a sodium fast reactor, which is far more advanced than most nuclear reactors, at high temperatures (not that bad: "only 510 C, 950 F). Sodium is infamously hard to deal with, incredibly reactive to water, capable of embrittling metal, and any impurities in the incredibly hot loop can dissolve and transfer and create incredibly corrrosive systems.

Superphenix in France (1973-1998) and Monju in Japan (1994-1995, 2010-2016) have both had significant technical challenges. The Soviets built have some sodium reactors.

I used to be very for a PRISM style reactor like TerraPower is working for, especially with something like Integral Fast Reactor's on-site non-proliferation-safe pyroprocessing. But man, over the years, I just appreciate more and more how hard it is to build and maintain well. I'm both rooting for TerraPower, but also, it low key feels like an "if not when" situation, that this an incredibly energetic unsafe system to be dealing with, and it seems hard to imagine this being a safe long term cost effective solution. I hope the inspections are very very for real, very in depth, very detailed, given the scope of what is being built. It's not even a big reactor! But that much very high temperature sodium going around, right by a big nuclear reactor (smartly TerraPower has separate nuclear and energy "wings), is deeply concerning, and needs incredibly detailed inspections if this is to provide the lasting safe value it is purporting to deliver.

Are the LFTR / MSR salts better or worse than hot sodium on vessel containment?

But with MSRs of a scalable size you could just pipe the fuel to a replacement reactor when the current vessel reached its operational life.

It will be quietly canceled in about two years….

That's the permit/approval for the pilot/test, right? There are about a million approvals they need to get through. Are they using the DoE fast tracking method?

Is it not possible that they build the first one and things don't go smoothly and they need to make some adjustments for subsequent builds?

They must investigate how it affects the whales. But won't be told which whales and where

That's just federal permission saying they're allowed to even proceed with the process. Nuclear projects cannot begin at all unless they get federal permission. Now that they have permission to do a project related to nuclear energy, I think they will still need to go through all the normal design, planning, permitting processes at federal/state/local levels. Unless they're building on federal land that is exempt from state/local oversight.

Didn't the Trump admin put in the same lawyer who helped Uber to "reform" the NRC? I can't find the Bloomberg article but they made it sound like they were going to gut the NRC. To be clear I am not endorsing this, but I read that was happening or they were at least trying.

This is the correct response

Concur, if it was an established builder with decades of know-how and experience doing a new buildout system maybe would be plausible to expect a reduction in the timeline for delivery. For comparison , the Chinese and Koreans who ae about the only players that have been consistently building/delivering reactors at scale over the last 30 odd years take a minimum of 9-10yrs. Expecting a commercially viable fleet buildout in half that time with less human capital and institutional knowhow is wildly optimistc. Maybe they subcontract out to the Koreans and get the running start that way?

Maybe they’ll use AI to help build it in record time, then the AI the first one powers will be used to shorten the timeline even further on nth projects /s

Can you really call a 20 year old company a startup?

If they’ve never completed a single project in 20 years, yes.

People on HN really love small-scale fission nuclear when the sun is (gestures) right there.

Take it and use it then

Of course I am assuming you're not going to cheat by using your right to sell to your solar electricity at fixed price to your local utility, let them figure out production and distribution issues and pretend you are consuming your own solar electricity.

And even on that timeline, that spots another 6 years for perovskite solar cell development, wind farm build out, and sodium ion and other ultra cheap storage chemistries to develop.

The oppressive economics of alternative energy right now is compared to all the other forms of generation is that they simply have a lot more runway just on economies of scale but also in technological development to increase their economic advantage. And keep in mind that alternative energy has already won the price war even over combined cycle natural gas

I just don't think solid fuel rod smrs are the way to go. I think the past the price competitive nuclear involves molten salt reactors with their inherent safety, inherent scalability, breeding, an online reprocessing that uses almost all the fuel.

Granted China has about the only one that's ever gone into semi-production. That reminds me, it's been about a year since I heard it went online and I haven't read anything about it

Does anyone understand how Meta is able to spend so much money on AI with basically no AI product to speak of? Especially after sinking billions of dollars into a failed VR product? I just don't really understand why they are investing in data centers, I don't know of any actual product they offer that anyone is seriously considering using in the space.

They will sell the capacity to others. And building data centers let's them leverage local tax advantages/incentives.

There are many uses for AI other than selling API/chat access. For Meta it can be for example use internally as a software tool, in the same way that they have their own datacenters instead of running on AWS. They can also use them to power recommendation algorithms to increase time on platform. Or they can use them to better target adverts and thus increase the revenue from ads. They can also use them to help people make ads on their platforms etc....

But if cacebook has aws class data centers for their IT, and anthropic level AI for their programmers....

.... Why keep that only in house and why not make competitive public companies?

They are using the same infinite money glitch as Google - ads revenue.

The market forgives misadventures cause Meta is still solvent and they make money YoY. Additionally, they are developing heavily in the AI space with making Llama available to the public and all the AI integrations into their products.

Internal use to watch everything and control everything

Imagine buying ad space on their platforms, but instead of writing copy and providing images, you simply give it your website.

Then they generate unique copy and images for each user (or hyper-targeted bucket of users), tailored to what would make them click. All continuously A/B tested.

I'm imagining it, and it'd at best be the same as if you gave your website to an ad sales agent without any instructions as to what your actual product or target audience is. At worst it'd be writing copy that is fully fabricated, doesn't match your brand language, and opens you up for false advertising claims.

Because Zuckerberg is the king and has complete control, but Meta is so far behind in this so-called AI model race it will be canceled quietly. It will just be but a footnote in about 2 to 3 years.

They're not using their money, they're borrowing it and using Special Purpose Vehicles to book the debt so it doesn't hit their own balance sheet.

Can you tell me more about this?

It will hit their balance sheet. For the debt to get the credit rating they want, facebook must commit to spending money on whatever the special purpose vehicle is doing.

Who cares about them, at least maybe there might be another viable nuclear reactor after they throw a lot of money at it. They lost money on dumb stuff: the metaverse, VR. By all means, throw money at a few nuclear reactors, at least those are useful to keep the lights on.

They probably want to better target ads and generate outrage slop with AI. That was always the plan: spy on people, make them unhappy, sell ads and maybe also provide the means to scoundrels to scam the elderly in the process.

Meta uses its ai products internally. I can't actually go read the reporting for you where they've talked about, but they talk about it regularly.

> with basically no AI product to speak of?

I don't use Meta products regularly, but they've crowbarred the "Meta AI" feature into everything - FB Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram... There's even a standalone website to chat with the Meta AI model similar to chatgpt:

> https://www.meta.ai/

I'm certainly prepared to agree that they don't have a huge amount of traction or marketshare, but they absolutely have already built AI products and they exist.

Outside of their own consumer products, there's the family of llama models too etc.

Meta has, to my understanding, been quite successfully deploying AI towards its ad business [1]. The consumer-facing stuff isn’t the point.

[1] https://business.meta.com/

I mean, say what you want about Facebook, but no-one could accuse it of being bad at spending money on stupid stuff. It is kind of its thing.

> Under this commercial agreement, Meta will provide funding to support the deployment of the Natrium plants, with delivery of initial units as early as 2032

The wording there implies some upfront money from Meta, and that this isn’t just a PPA like we normally see.

But with no numbers attached it’s hard to know if it’s a serious investment or just PR fluff.

Even if this flops, it's still better to lose money on this than the Metaverse.

The name makes me think it is a molten salt reactor, but it uses liquid sodium. Still aptly named.

I was hoping the Thorium molten salt ones with atmospheric pressure vessels would pick up pace thanks to this boom in power demand or Helion would arrive on the scene right on time for this.

It is a molten salt reactor, just not a molten salt thorium reactor.

Sodium (without chlorine or similar) is a metal, not a salt.

They plan to use molten salt for energy storage, but the reactor itself is liquid metal cooled.

Ah, you're right. I think the linked article makes this quite unclear, but TerraPower's own website does a better job of it.

Sad for Meta it will be obsolete by the time it’s theoreticallyput online which I doubt will ever happen.

> A dual Natrium reactor site can provide 690 MW of reliable 24/7 365 power

Given that they haven’t actually built one, asserting the performance seems inappropriate, _especially_ the uptime which IIRC is far, far higher than is typical for proven designs, let alone a new one.

Well operated, mature nuclear power plants can easily achieve 90%+ uptime. I don’t think this is a huge issue.

Is 90% equal to 24x7, 365?

Yes. The refueling takes the most time but that is planned years in advance. A one-year planned outage every decade can still be 24/7/365 in the other nine years.

Natrium is expected to spend around 1 month refueling every 24 months.

So that is say 5% downtime. Add in time for upgrades and refurbishments, and refueling periods alone are bang on the 10% downtime number.

Ah yes, the ol' GitHub method of reporting. "When we're up, we have lots of nines!"

Which is why people who run websites shouldnt be allowed anywhere near powerplants.

Unless they hire Homer Simpson.....

In fact, the uptime of US nuclear power plants was above 90% for the last decade.

And even if a reactor goes offline, a power plant usually operates 2 to 4 reactors, so the entire plant continues operating.

This is a brand new type, there's no way that equivalent operation to a decades old design with centuries of operational experience can be assumed. Presumably its been designed for high uptime but it would not be unusual for new technology like this to require some refinement.

I think it is a bad idea to allow Meta to participate in nuclear reactor operations. Nuclear reactors and other power infrastructure should be utility-owned and managed under clear regulations designed to eliminate the possibility of control by outside interests who might, or would, be tempted to unload byproducts suitable for production of weapons to anyone who had the money to buy them. They should be prohibited from spinning off any part of their operations into weapons development and prohibited from investing in any entity that is involved in weapons production.

I like the idea of a network of thorium reactors. I don't want to see any part of that network owned or controlled by people that we already know place their own selfish interests above everything else.

Therefore I guess I am suggesting that high net worth individuals should be prohibited from all investments in or operations involving weapons production.

Maybe I just don't trust that guy and think that he would gladly offload the responsibility of waste disposal or processing on anyone in a backroom deal that we don't learn about until he has been providing materials to refine and construct weapons to individuals who will gladly employ them in attacks.

I'm not paranoid, I just hate assholes.

I mean, didn't we give the government and the public long enough to prove they could provide abundant, cheap nuclear? They were so closed in the 60/70s and have since failed miserably and everyone has suffered for it. Cheap, abundant energy is good for humanity. If a private company accelerates it, I'm here for it.

Yes, I'm also for solar, and wind, and geothermal, and nat gas, and way out there fusion. It's hard to exaggerate how much cheap, abundant, reliable energy helps civilization.

But everything about this is already privatized, from the uranium mining to the nuclear power plant operators to the nuclear waste disposal, to each piece in the nuclear triard manufacturered by military industry, from the private contractors guarding our bombs down to the luxury fallout shelter industry. It's big business. You aren't paranoid, just naive to think Mark Zuckerberg is in any way the problem in particular, think of all the billionaire assholes you have never heard about.

https://www.icanw.org/investing_in_the_arms_race

Most nuclear power plants worldwide are owned and operated by private companies rather than governments?

If anything, nuclear tends to be much more strictly regulated than the 73 GW (wtf) of off-grid mostly gas plants to power datacenters for example.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fast-tracked-power-p...

I am kinda surprised that there are enough turbines to accommodate such spike in demand.

just because Meta is funding or purchasing power from a nuclear plant doesn't put those plants outside regulatory jurisdiction

> The eight 345 MW advanced sodium cooled reactors would provide Meta with up to 2.8 GW of carbon-free, baseload energy. Each reactor comes with the Natrium technology’s innovative built-in energy storage system providing the capacity to boost total output to 4 GW of power.

For energy storage, is it storing the hot water, or using batteries to store generated electricity?

Sodium cooled. They will store heat in a big thermos of molten salt.

Hence, natrium.

> molten salt

Metal.

Meta have recently appointed a new president, ex Wall Street with connections to sovereign wealth and also she is married to a republican politician

Financial press saying they are exploring all means of raising large sums of money for AI investment

Also rumours Meta is going to start a Cloud business.

News from January OP;

Discussion on this and related Meta nuclear moves at the time:

Meta announces nuclear energy projects

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46578497

> DOE Awards $2.7 Billion for Uranium Enrichment

Why are they getting so much money for this? Isn't there private capital with Meta involved?

> The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $2.7 billion to strengthen domestic enrichment services over the next ten years. The historic investment expands U.S. capacity for low-enriched uranium (LEU) and jumpstarts new supply chains and innovations for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to create American jobs and usher in the nation’s nuclear renaissance.

hmm, seems like a pretty steep investment. Hopefully it returns some tax money

Thorium reactors are the future, safest possible

PBS Space Time explainer

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElulEJruhRQ

Capex bubble anyone?

Meta should be a good buy somewhere in $150-$200 area. I guess.

> I don't believe you.[0]

[0] https://c.tenor.com/wuKJbik2LcEAAAAM/anchorman-ron-burgundy....

imo, theres a reasonable chance we will have functioning fusion reactors before these are turned on.

20 more years

At least we might get some good things from the AI bubble.

Yes! Almost every human problem boils down to an energy problem. I welcome the future in which we have so much nuclear power (and other power sources) that electricity is too cheap to meter.

So what? The tech doesn't work well and the contractors have no knowledge of government contracting.

yes, and hopefully all of them will be set up in his garden and his children kindergarten.

Because why somebody else should bear the risk of a nuclear disaster.

This is nonsense. State/society is the last backstop, the last resort insurer in nuclear risk. Why shall we insure nuclear risks so Mark gets richer with more clicks ? again socializing the costs and privatizing de profits.

Not in my backyard.

This kind of reactor is really hard to blow up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor#Properties

(Disclaimer: most of my life I lived closer than 50 miles to various major nuclear plants.)

Maybe you're right. Maybe we should just continue to burn coal and let people die of black lung mining it and millions of people living in the pollution zone. Safe, clean energy is overrated.

I am not saying I am against nuclear. I am just against "private" nuclear benefits, public insurance.

Your answer is off topic and full of prejudice.

If they let me buy the heat for cheap, yes in my backyard. Well, not literally in my back yard, but only because there's a great space several blocks over where there's already lots of freeway noise, so any process noise will be overwhelmed. My city needs tax revenue too, so this would be great.

When I read this I am more convinced that Europe is done. With leaders like Kaja Kallis, Rutte and Ursula it's so blatantly visible that these people can't think further than one minute. It's really time for a breakup so countries are no longer chained to insanity. They are destroying themselves.

It seems Europe is living rent free in your head, maybe you should talk to a shrink.

I think that person is in the EU and certainly not living rent free!

But it is a very real concern that there seems to be a total lack of technology investment and innovation across Europe.

> that there seems to be a total lack of technology investment and innovation across Europe

I wouldn’t be concerned, because this is obviously false.

There probably is an EU derangement syndrome. If it can afflict the English, it can afflict everyone. Maybe the original poster should consider a sightseeing trip to Europe.

Good term, we should use that.

It's a massive propaganda push paid for by some of the richest people of the planet. It started with Brexit/Cambridge Analytica; continues with the Bannon/Epstein chat histories, and Vance/Trump trying to influence local elections (e.g. the pro-Orban speeches).

It seems autocrats are really uncomfortable with educated people speaking up. I'm quite sure these autocrats are also really annoyed when their own children reach puberty.

Ursula Vonderleyenska is not real and can not harm you

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