Breeding is a technology looking for a business case.

It's more expensive than just using fresh uranium in current market conditions. It's a way from keeping future uranium shortages from making nuclear power more expensive; it's not a way to make nuclear cheaper than it currently is.

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NewJazz an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Emphasis on current market conditions. Relations with uranium mining countries and environmental opposition to uranium mining could shift conditions.

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SirHumphrey 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

The truth is that nuclear power is not that financially attractive at the present and would the price of uranium rise enough that breeders would become economically viable most countries would just stop bothering with nuclear power altogether.

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cpursley 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

> The truth is that nuclear power is not that financially attractive

Let me fix that for you: "The truth is that nuclear power is not that financially attractive in the bureaucratic high cost litigious Anglo-sphere". And that's pretty much all infrastructure these days, unfortunately.

	▲	dalyons 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They’re not financially attractive in other parts of the world either. China, a zero litigation single party state, is building some but a tiny % compared to their renewable buildout

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dmix an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It also apparently provides a way to make reactors that don’t depend as much on water so they don’t all have to be near the coast.

This would allow Western China to also develop reactors to help underpin their renewable and coal energy.

> The interest in MSR technology and Thorium breeding did not disappear however. China's nuclear power production relies heavily on imported uranium,[10] a strategic vulnerability in the event of i.e. economic sanctions. Additionally, the relative lack of water available for cooling PWRs west of the Hu line is a limiting factor for siting them there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMSR-LF1?wprov=sfti1#History

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> also apparently provides a way to make reactors that don’t depend as much on water so they don’t all have to be near the coast Non-water microreactors broadly fall into two categories: ones using a different moderator, most commonly sodium, a sodium salt or helium; and those using heat pipes. Most microreactor designs don’t use water.
	▲	littlestymaar 26 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Nuclear plants don't need more water than a coal plant of the same power, they both use the same steam turbine with water as cold source.

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adrian_b an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They highlight less the advantages from breeding, than other advantages of the molten salt design, like not needing a lot of cooling water, which allows this reactor to operate in the Gobi desert, the possibility of replacing the fuel without halting the reactor and various safety features.

	▲	littlestymaar 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Nuclear reactors don't need a particularly big amount of cooling water. The thermodynamic cycle needs a cold source though, and it's most commonly water. This doesn't depend on the reactor design and this is equally as true of coal plants. As long as you are making electricity out of a thermodynamic cycle, you need a heat source (be it a flame or a nuclear reaction) and a cold source.

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lunar-whitey an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is no business case for basic research, but if you stop basic research long enough you will have no business. The United States and its allies seem to have completely forgotten this.

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HPsquared an hour ago | parent [-]

It makes sense for big monopolies like Bell, or the CCP. The investment can be justified if the ones investing are confident they will be able to capture the value and not some competitor.

	▲	lunar-whitey an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Bell Labs also served to maintain positive perceptions of the monopoly. Unix was famously developed despite the knowledge that AT&T would not be able to offer it as an independent product.

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littlestymaar 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> in current market conditions.

That is, as long as we don't build more nuclear power plants.

If you want to increase nuclear power adoption, then you're not going to stay in “current market conditions” for long.

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inglor_cz 34 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Reducing the energy sector to pure business would probably work in the 1990s, but not now, when countries are afraid of strategic dependence on potentially hostile suppliers.

Uranium isn't as ubiquitous as, say, natural gas, and stockpiling it comes with a big heap of physical problems. I can definitely see countries spending on more expensive technology if it comes with more energy security.