Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Pebble bed reactors not dead yet

Idaho National Lab Achieves 19% Burn for Nuclear Pebbles

This post talks about the work on nuclear fuel pebbles which would be used in pebble bed reactors. China is ploughing ahead with the development of modular pebble bed reactors, apparently. (I wonder if South Africa will miss out on the market if they can't get their act together.)

Of course, I have been arguing for ages that this is exactly the type of technology that it would seem needs direct, Western government support to develop, and monies raised by a carbon tax would seem an ideal way to do that. Instead, we'll stuff around paying other countries for dubious offsets, establish a new way for suits to make money by trading mere bits of paper, and set targets regardless of lack of plausible ways to reach them without heavy government investment in new technology.

Hmph.

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