Cosmic Log has the details.
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
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In Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite Geoffrey Landis explores how space-based solar power could be switched on demand from one city to a higher-bidding one thousands of km away. The beams have to fly six to seven Earth radii anyway.
This long flight also makes it impossible to focus them very tightly. The antenna farms have to be big. Aggressive sharers of ignorance are always talking about weaponizability and cooked geese. It's a waste of time to try to correct them, but good to know that these issues were dealt with long ago. No geese will be cooked by SPS, except maybe in kitchen ovens powered by it.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, boron car fan
Internal combustion without exhaust gas
Nuclear, solar, hydro, and wind can power our civilization for centuries at far lower cost.
SpaceX might ultimately reduce launch costs by an order of magnitude, but to do better something radically new will probably be needed.
There are some vaguely feasible ideas to do so, but none of them have been demonstrated, and would take a lot of time and money to bring to fruition.
But until that occurs, space solar power is a very expensive pipedream.
But, like many other things, it takes time and effort to discover this. At first glance, huge space-based arrays collecting unlimited solar energy seem much more attractive than "dirty old fission."