The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Ceramic-coated TRISO nuclear fuel cannot melt down up to 1600°C
“The temperature limit of the fuel becomes this extremely high value, and you can go to about 1600 Celsius before there's an appreciable failure rate of the ceramic coated fuel. So what it means is you can't melt down the fuel.”
Bernauer predicts multiple nuclear entities will conduct fuel tests in 2026
“And I think others are going to do that same thing in that same year. So it won't even be just us. It'll be several different entities.”
Radiant microreactors cost tens of millions versus billions for conventional reactors
“So the, I mean, the really big ones that we have now are on the order of a few billion dollars for reactor. A tiny little one that I'm working on is on the order of tens of millions of dollars, but you know, everyone's design is quite a bit different, but it's…”
Helium gas coolant cannot absorb neutrons or become radioactive
“We use helium gas because it can't become radioactive either. And it's a gas. It can't actually absorb a neutron, which is what makes something radioactive when it starts out not being radioactive.”
US gigawatt-scale nuclear reactors are derived from a 1950s design
“And that's why today we have, I think the number is about 93 operating gigawatt scale light water reactors. They're all based on that one design from that moment in time, way back when.”
Uranium's negative thermal coefficient automatically shuts microreactors down if cooling fails
“If that helium pump fails, the system will start to heat up. And as it heats up, it doesn't even need to heat up very much. It heats up a little bit. The reactor goes subcritical and shuts itself off. And this is
this is true for most reactor technologies bec…”
Bernauer spent 12 years at SpaceX after consecutive launch failures
“Yeah, I spent 12 years at SpaceX had joined when they had failed two rockets in a row but I thought it was just a big and beautiful mission to lower the cost of launch, to make life multi-planetary and that's why I did that for 12 years, but I worked on all so…”