Science

The BWRX-300 is essentially reliant on an old technology - it's just a small BWR - and while there have been some improvements in the materials science connected with the cladding, it's still just another light water reactor.

Unlike the BWRX-300, the CANDU can function as a breeder with a ternary plutonium/depleted uranium/thorium fuel, helping to extend our fissionable resources. This is not a current industrial practice, but the Indians are moving in that direction as they have a fleet of heavy water reactors of the CANDU type.

I don't oppose any nuclear reactors, but I do think we should build innovative types that go beyond the 60s and 70s, my fondness for the CANDU notwithstanding.

If we are to scale up at any rate that might address the extreme global heating we are now observing, fissionable fuels might present as a bottle neck leading to a large scale up in uranium enrichment which I generally oppose as wasteful and, although it's over hyped, a possible weapons proliferation risk.

To the extent that boiling reactors produce reactor grade plutonium, their used fuel represents a resource, but it is an inefficiently utilized resource. The breeding ratio is less than one.

I'd like to see more innovative "breed and burn" type reactors become a standard SMR; they will offer something that light water reactors really can't, process heat. I have some reservations about the Terrapower reactor, but I'd rather see them, or the Kairos, and/or (my favorite) the Oklo designs become standards. Oklo, I think, has the right idea; the resource for fueling their reactors is used nuclear fuel. It is, in a sense, still overly focused on a backwards look, this at the EBR-II, but I expect they will find a path to deeper innovation.