Neville was unavoidably absent in June, but we soldiered on & discussed Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
We found there were fifty products under development or licensed in ten countries using six technologies
We discussed the technologies, including light water reactors (current generation three technology), Molten Salt Reactors, High Temperature Gas Reactors and Sodium Fast Reactors.
This later group are generation four reactors and more next decade technology, although they have been in development dating back to the 1950-60s.
Generation three reactors are inefficient in the use of uranium ore. They generally use fissile U235 which is only 1% of uranium ore while non fissile U238 is 99%. Consequently, there is long term nuclear waste to be carefully stored
Generation four reactors are much more efficient, are able to burn nuclear waste from generation three reactors and in some cases transmute U238 to fuel within a reactor, eventually leaving a small amount of very short-term nuclear waste.