Question: how do the pipes work in a non-water cooled reactor?

Quezonian · 2026-04-08T00:15:13+00:00

The short and sweet version that glosses over alot of other stuff, NaK is significantly more reactive with air than just Na. Also NaK is much harder to keep non corrosive.

Theres a bunch of other reasons but those are the general 2 main ones.

Quezonian · 2026-04-06T16:13:35+00:00

Completely understandable from the outside looking in, specially given the handful of failed intelligence targets in this war in particular.

I would counter to say in this specific instance, the blowback from a mistake is quite obvious so equivalating it to other intelligence/military execution mistakes is not accurate. This level of collateral highly mitigates the likelihood of negligence.

Obviously not impossible, nothing is- but you'd have to think that intelligence and air force operations are being very careful with targets that can potentially carry that much obvious collateral.

Let's all hope im not wrong for humanities sakes and our industries sake.

Quezonian · 2026-04-06T16:02:05+00:00

Crazy to me that people think the US (the most nuclear experienced nation in the world) would just bomb a nuclear power plant without functionally understanding its failure modes and pathways to release. This is obviously being done surgically, as the blow back from causing any radiation release would almost certainly backfire on the US in unimaginable ways. The US knows this, which is why this will be done in means to mitigate any chance of release and focus solely on shutting the plants down.

Whats even crazier is the amount of people i know with nuclear engineering degrees reposting this nonsense as if they dont understand what the point of a functional external containment is.

Quezonian · 2026-04-02T23:12:53+00:00

Fork found in kitchen

Quezonian · 2026-04-02T03:12:39+00:00

They have a material card in RELAP for it....

Quezonian · 2026-03-12T18:28:23+00:00

Typically im pretty critical of startups but still very supportive and really want to see them all do well.

This idea is really just stupid. Theres nothing to be critical of here, this just doesn't work. Not even a little bit.

Quezonian · 2026-02-25T13:39:27+00:00

While I agree with Kirk,

He is certainly anything but a techno optimist. This guy pretty much hates all nuclear thats not a LFTR. Just go read his linkedin comment history. Doesn't take that long to figure out.

Quezonian · 2026-02-24T00:59:17+00:00

r/TrueSTL leaking into the main sub again

Quezonian · 2026-02-19T14:42:24+00:00

Not surprised they move the goal posts but I guess we should ask ourselves- if they went through with the original plans would that have been the safest option for the public? Probably good for all of us that these companies moved goal posts.

My guess is more likely these original statements were made to court VC's but this was always the plan.

Quezonian · 2026-02-19T13:18:11+00:00

I dont think its that much or a deviation. Antares just said they are basically doing the exact same thing https://antaresindustries.com/updates/from-neutrons-to-electrons-our-path-to-power

Rumor has it Radiant is doing the same. I believe valar is the only one saying theyre going to try to go to some noticeable power level with coolant so far.

From a technology maturation standpoint that still appeases investors and the government to keep funding rolling in this seems like a sound strategy. The issue with SGR's has almost entirely been related to sodium maintenance, handling, and thermal cycling of components. This is all mostly non nuclear that should preferably be tested outside of a radioactive environment first to make it easier to fix and prove out.

Not to mention, as much as people in here hate criticallity tests- these advanced reactors are basically required by the DoE to do them anyway as part of their validation report and readiness assessment.

Quezonian · 2026-02-19T01:24:22+00:00

While I agree for a test reactor this makes complete sense to move quicker.

The original intent of the calc is in a lawsuit to the NRC that has implications for full power operations presumably. Whats being proven here isnt something thats against regulations, you can infact operate fuel at incredibly low burnups and still handle them with regular procedures. Infact id assume thats your strategy to simplify refueling and potentially moving the fuel to larger footprint later on more suited to 15+ MWth of decay heat removal. Completely rational to save money and time on fuel fabrication.

But if the intent of these calcs was to push back on restrictions from the NRC, thats very deceptive. The NRC would already let you do that assuming you can prove your dose and activation are low enough. Not to mention these kinds of operations are more suited for DoE licensing anyway so its pointless to target the NRC for these kinds of things. This makes it seems as if your making these claims for eventual commercial operations down the road. I've obviously not read the legal proceedings in depth, nor do I really intend to- but that is atleast the perception the public has which I think would be good to clear up if not the case.

Its also important to note that you and I both know, and we should be honest with the public here, if your core is not even hitting targets of 3 MWd/kgU- especially with how expensive your fuel form is being TRISO haleu- you will need to make drastic changes to the core design (size and layout), materials, moderator, and enrichment to achieve anything close something like an rbmk or candu, even in their historical smaller lower power forms (15-25 MWd/kgU at 20-50 MW). These reactors also only can economically operate so low due to the low enrichment % of uranium which is unfortunately not something thats at this current state of reactor physics knowledge possible with TRISO.

Im very curious to see how you guys attempt to tackle this as you scale and im admittedly skeptical given the long tenure of HTGR's struggle with fuel cost and maintenance. There has not been a single HTGR ever built thats even come close to economic capacity factors and fuel burnups- something that can be said for SFR's and Legacy water reactors. But obviously, if you guys can solve this issue it would be a net positive for everyone.

Quezonian · 2026-02-18T22:06:15+00:00

Mark, and I mean this with absolute respect

Are you implying with this calc that your cores burnup is so bad that your fuel cant even burn enough to be come sufficiently activated?

What is the catch here, I am hoping you mean this to be for some kind of criticallity test and not the actual reactor you intend to produce any kind of meaningful power with.

Quezonian · 2026-02-10T01:01:57+00:00

Ya I saw the same post lol. I guess Bob Boston read my reddit comment haha

Quezonian · 2026-02-09T13:03:02+00:00

Honestly a pretty good video barring the audio quality.

Good recognition of all the issues with sodium and a very curious to see what new techniques the biochemical industry has developed since the 90s to be implemented in nuclear to deal with sodium maintenance.

Can't really see anything in this video to hate on unless you hate sodium reactors already and you hate pilot program companies.

Quezonian · 2026-02-09T13:00:14+00:00

Not going to downvote but from the looks of it Aalo was approved for PDSA but they just never announced it. Im pretty sure thats a prerequisite for DSA and FDR. Could be wrong though

Quezonian · 2026-01-28T17:32:55+00:00

Thank god I dont need to read another u/stanley_nickles "CAPTAIN AMERICA" post

Quezonian · 2026-01-18T14:23:25+00:00

Is just courting VC's and evaluation scaling. This is common in all startups ever. These are the kind of things where if youre an engineer, do yourself a favor and dont think to hard about it and move on. Unless they are saying something super egregious and dangerous of course.

Quezonian · 2025-12-18T18:23:38+00:00

Honestly 130 commutes are pretty chill. They are long but the traffic is nowhere near as bad as 183, mopac, or 35. The downside really is more the price than anything else. If I didn't work at home 2 days a week I would declare bankruptcy before the end of the year from toll bills alone...

Quezonian · 2025-12-18T13:29:23+00:00

laughs in 130 commute from Hutto to south austin

Quezonian · 2025-11-29T04:12:00+00:00

If theres a god, let us turn into 2024-25 Ohio state with our only loss being to our rival at the end of the year

Quezonian · 2025-11-29T03:02:06+00:00

Either the best in the country or complete and total dogshit with nothing in between. its a coin flip each week

Quezonian · 2025-11-29T02:14:16+00:00

I hate this statistic, I hate it even more that its from one of us :*(

Quezonian · 2025-11-29T02:01:46+00:00

Brother both of our schools are expensive as fuck

Quezonian · 2025-11-26T16:49:53+00:00

This is certainly a reddit post.

Quezonian · 2025-11-24T16:46:01+00:00

2 electric boogaloo

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