It feels like every few months there’s a new tech “revolution” being hyped up as the future. Besides AI, what’s the most overhyped trend in tech right now? For me, it’s the constant buzz around the metaverse.
It feels like every few months there’s a new tech “revolution” being hyped up as the future. Besides AI, what’s the most overhyped trend in tech right now? For me, it’s the constant buzz around the metaverse.
Small modular reactors. You see these being proposed but so far they’re not being built.
The two nuclear developmemts I’m watching closest are the test molten salt reactor in Oak Ridge, TN and just recently heard about a new permit to build one for Abilene Christian University in Texas.
Molten salt sounds like a terrible design for modular, the whole problem is if it loses power it freezes solid, you’d want a huge one with tons of backup imho.
I’d imagine a tiny pebble bed or traveling wave, something fairly inert and safe.
Edit: I guess that’s the point, give someone a reactor, if they screw it up it safely freezes dead. Problem solved.
There have been others building a prototype or research reactor, but the M in SMR also stands for mass-produced and nobody got even close to that.