this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Radiant bags $300M-plus to commercialize its microreactors (www.theregister.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social to c/hardware@lemmy.world
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[โ€“] Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Unlike other SMR designs we've discussed over the past year, Radiant's Kaleidos reactors are tiny, capable of producing about a megawatt of power each. However, the actual mechanism for energy generation isn't too far off from the designs we've seen from X-Energy, which use TRISO fuel pellets and helium gas as a coolant.

I am not expert on DC power provision strategy, but one megawatt seems like a tiny amount.

However, the jury is still out on whether SMRs will ever be cost effective. In September, analysts at the Centre for Net Zero (CNZ) estimated it would cost 43 percent less to power a 120 MW data facility with renewables and a small amount of gas-generated energy, compared to using SMRs

Then what's the point? Even if economies of scale bring down production costs, there are still going to be unique costs with operating SMRs.

Are they planning to deploy them without any safety measures? Literally just a trailer module that any well-connected local goon can deploy anywhere?

[โ€“] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, multi-megawatt wind turbines are pretty common.