It is very interesting to see that so many people here are in favor of nuclear power. And the best are the arguments why nuclear is not such a big issue as coal or oil. The discussion in Germany is quite different. We are going to end the nuclear age in our country and have increased the output of electricity out of renewable energy up to 17% in the last decade. Based on current development in wind and solar power we believe that we can obsolete nuclear power by 2020 and meet our CO2 reduction goal as well. We think that we will reach that limit even faster with closing nuclear plant earlier.
That's really interesting actually. How are they planning on solving the base load problem (that wind and solar are intermittent)? Hydro is a good alternative, but that will drown a lot of land under several metres of water and kill a lot of wildlife in the building process. In Sweden, we shut down one nuclear power plant (Barsebäck) which was compensated by both importing coal power from Poland and upping the efficiency of the existing NPPs. Not even the Danes who have invested a *lot* of resources into wind power have managed to get rid of fossil fuels for base load.
But looking into the argument of coal kills more people than nuclear plants and their waste. This is definitely not true. It kill thousands after the Chernobyl disaster and something which is not counted in studies is the increase in cancer rates, babies born dead or deformed and the negative effects on the environment. So the argument coal kills more people is faulty.
Actually, it's not. The Chernobyl disaster didn't kill thousands, it killed 28 people. About 4000 were expected to die from different cancers (mostly thyroid) but the actual numbers seem to be a lot lower now that we're 25 years into the future. The increase in cancer rates are included in the statistics and they're low.
What's not included is the amount of radioactive substances released by coal power plants -- they're a lot higher than from nuclear power plants. Therefore, more people die from cancer caused by coal power than nuclear power every year, not to mention the other substances that's being let out into the atmosphere...
If you're able to build a society on 100% renewable energy, then that's obiously a lot better than nuclear power. However, given the track record of renewables, I don't think it's actually doable without significant specialized natural resources (i.e. Iceland can use geothermal, Sweden has a lot of large rivers, etc.).
I hate to state the bleeding obvious, but it seems that I must.
Why would you want more nuclear power? There is only so much uranium to be mined. It really doesn't matter how long estimates say the uranium reserves will last, there is still only so much to be had, and then what?
You need to put the the time you're talking about in perspective. Fissionable fuel is a finite resource in the same way as land to build houses upon or the Sun (both will fail in about 5 billion years). Uranium lasts another ~250 years in the *current* reactor designs (extracting ~1% of the fuel value of the uranium), breeder reactors will lengthen this to about a hundred times longer. Then after that there's thorium that lasts around 100 000 years. However, I sincerely hope we develop a better energy source before that runs out...
for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.
All phones I've tried out does this (although that's just Ericsson, SonyEricsson, Nokia and Samsung) over the last ~10 years. I think most phones can't be powered off completely without removing the battery.
They have, they are designed to contain the molten core in the pressure vessel (as in TMI) or, worst case, in the concrete foundation below (constructed for the purpose of retaining a meltdown). If I understand everything correctly, it is the spent fuel pools that are the problem (although they have successfully filled them with some more water now I think?). It seems those were pretty badly located (outside of containment, on top of the reactors) in the design. There's also some issues about the wetwell around the reactor, it seems it wasn't such a brilliant design idea.
They did -- the only problem was, they only planned for one that was a few meters high (and not ten). One solution is just increasing the height of tsunami barriers, but that somehow that feels like inviting a 15 meter high tsunami next time...
The Fukushima meltdown didn't have to happen: Japan Nuclear Disaster Caps Decades of Faked Reports, Accidents. I've read other reports of non-functioning standby diesels in US-based boiling water reactors. Do you really think it's any better here or whereever you live?
While I agree with the point of your post, I must point out that in the Fukushima case the standby diesels *did* work. It was just that they weren't really compatible with a 10 metre tsunami. However, up to the point of getting swallowed by it, they worked fine on all reactors.
It's taken an 8.9 scale earthquake to start causing problems with these reactors
This argument is a fallacy, in 2002 the David-Besse reactor passed inches away of a loss of coolant accident with impossibility to insert the control rods from a single leak.[..]
No that argument is *not* a fallacy. If you want to include near misses, you have to do that for all other forms of comparable energy generation as well. How many near misses are there per year for oil power plants? Oil refineries? Coal mines? I'll bet there's just as many there.
The local residents have been given many days warning of the problems. If anyone gets hurt it will be because they were not listening.
The residents have been told there's nothing to fear for a simple reason: in case of a major radiation leak there is nothing to do anyway, it's impossible to evacuate a whole country. So the guys can only do their best and hope for the best.
No, that's not true either. All within a radius of 20 km have been evacuated already. The zone of alienation around Chernobyl is 30 kilometres, and that's around the worst nuclear disaster we've ever had.
Did you not notice that more people were injured in the oil refinery inferno than the nuclear reactors so far?
That's a totally fallacious and ludicrous argument that is unfortunately parroted all the time. First this only points to how sloppily the oil and coal industries are (cf BP oil spill), not how safe nuclear is. But above all this is akin to driving at 100mph and saying "I haven't had any major accident yet, see how safe my driving is?" Except the guy is not a motorist, he's a school bus driver with one million kids in his bus.
No, it's not, it's a fair and square argument. However, as to your point, we can establish that more people die every year from coal pollution than what's died in all nuclear power plant accidents combined since we started using it. Of course, nothing is 100% safe all the time, but if you want to discuss safety, nuclear power is the safest alternative we have for baseload power generation. That's not to say this accident is really, really bad and people will probably die.
Pirated software is free. There is no way to compete with that at any price. People who are willing to pirate software will, no mater what the software costs.
My favorite response to this is "bottled water": the bottled water industry successfully competes with tap water, even though the price is outrageously higher. That's because, in the consumers eyes, they add value. Competing with (almost) free works just fine.
I wasn't aware that Japan had nuclear reactors, it was a really dumb idea for them to do.
Well, they haven't really got any alternative as they haven't got a lot of rivers to use for hydropower and they probably didn't want to go fossile.
In the US the few nuclear reactors we have are designed so that if power is lost to the core the control rods fall into the core and the fuel rods fall out and the reaction stops. The problem is that if a reactor like that suffers and earthquake you can end up in a position where the rods get jammed and the assurance of an automatic shutdown disappears.
From what I've gathered it's a bit of a moot point as these reactors were apparently built upside down such that they have to have constant power to keep the reactor offline.
That's wrong, sorry. What you're thinking of is probably that the control rods go in the other way, but that doesn't mean they need to have constant power. The power requirements are because the reactors need cooling for a week or so after the nuclear reaction has stopped (it's the same for any BWR or PWR), because of decay heat from the radioactive isotopes that were formed when the reaction was going. That means it's the same for US reactors (or any other country, for that matter). Newer designs incorporate passive safety measures so they can better cope with loss of plant power.
What? There are no graphite rods in the Fukushima reactors, the neutron moderation is done by means of ordinary water. What you're talking about is a design flaw of *RBMK* reactors, i.e. the Chernobyl-type. Which, besides the graphite moderator, graphite-tipped control rods, lack of containment structure and control rods going in from below, had a number of other design faults, one of which was the ability to turn off all automatic safety systems.
"Obiously"? No, this will be exactly like Three Mile Island because this is the almost same type of accident (although the initial cause and reactor designs differs a bit). Thus, the end result will be a few totally hosed reactors and no radiation leakage to speak of to the environment (and electricity shortage for the Japanese people). That, and the clean-up from the worst earthquake and tsunami disaster to hit Japan in modern time.
All energy sources are subsidised. Nuclear is probably the least subsidised one, as the subsidies are mostly governement-backed loans and not direct monetary contributions.
I don't quite get why everyone on Slashdot is saying "there's just hysteria here, nuclear power is safe!" and posting strange analogies to bridge-building, steam engines and the like. It's almost a backlash against popular opinion (and the fact) that using nuclear power can have negative consequences.
Mostly because they feel that there is an illogical fear of nuclear power in general and people scream "Beware of the invisible danger and think of the children!" as soon as we have any type of nuclear accident.
The problem is that it's not just a matter of "how many people die" or "how likely an accident is", but that the consequences of nuclear power usage and accidents are so long-term.
Of course, the consequence is just as important as the chance of it happening in any basic risk analysis, but remember that the odds are really really low. It took the biggest earthquake Japan has seen in modern history to set off this type of scenario. Thus, the risk is low.
Perhaps the hysteria is due to the nature of radiation sickness, and the fear of dying from radiation poisoning, [..]
It think you're spot on here -- people have an irrational fear of what they cannot control. This has been shown again and again in the past, such as after the 11th of September 2001 when people stopped flying due to fear of terrorist attacks, with a lot more people dead in automobile accidents as a result.
[..] but just because there is some hysteria over one aspect of a story doesn't mean that all criticisms of nuclear power generation are somehow automatically discredited.
No, of course not, and I don't think that's what people are trying to say. I think most people would rather wait a couple of months (or a few years) for this crisis to blow over until we start debating nuclear power. Having the debate now, during a nuclear accident, is just short-sighted thinking.
Consider that radioactive waste will remain harmful for 1000s of years - just an incredible legacy to leave the coming generations of humanity.
That's one argument that cannot be refuted, that's why it's a bad argument -- you cannot ask the children that aren't born yet if they'd like nuclear power. That's why we, as adults, can make an informed decision for them. For example: Shortly after the Three-Mile Island accident, my parents had the chance to vote how to handle the nuclear power problem (as it was seen back then), and this argument was one of the greatest in the debate. However, 30 years later, we see that we who weren't born back then (statistically) really like nuclear power and want it back.
Not all countries (Japan, for example, comes to mind) has rivers large enough to use for hydropower. There are also serious environmental issues with hydropower (you're effectively drowning a large area of land), and in the end, you'll also need to have something for the remaining 30% (which should preferably not be fossil based). Nuclear is good to have in the mix and for some countries, it's their only realistic choice for base-load.
Now that depends on where you live. There are lots of areas where the natural background radiation from radon in the ground gives you a helluva dose on a yearly basis.
Radionuclides are being released in an uncontrolled manner into the environment both from the seawater and vented gasses. Every drop of sea water that is exposed to the failed fuel rods will be contaminated.
I've seen no information on how they are cooling the reactors with seawater, how or if it comes into contact with the fuel and if it's being released untreated. Have you got some information that everybody else is missing?
Previous attempts to poison the core (slow down the reaction rate) with boron were not productive.
Boron is used to stop the nuclear chain reaction (as water is a moderator, it will tend to increase it). It has no relationship with cooling the reactor.
The entire site will very likely become a museum of engineering failure for future generations.
Or more likely the opposite: A museum over a 40 year old reactor design that even though it wasn't desiged to take this kind of hit, still did it and kept the containment (although the reactor itself i ruined)
Seismic activity and violent weather evidently played no part in the final design of this plant. Real nuclear power plants use a reactor design that allows for failure of external power.
This one was also designed to be operated off-grid. However, the earthquake also damaged the diesel generators to power the emergency cooling system, as well as the coolant pumps. Remember, this was a basic, light water generation III boiling water design, not the new fancy passive generation IV designs currently being planned.
The MAC adress is only visible to the first router. Unless your computer located in the data hall of the company you're visiting, they're not getting it.
OTOH, two users will likely have at least one thing in the HTTP header set differently, even if they're the same version, and that can be used to track them. I think EFF (or some other such organisation) did a test of this quite recently.
... or he could backdoor the passwd program. I think GP was just trying to make a point about computationally difficult hashes and made a bad choice of words.
Why do you think the subsidies for fossil fuel are lower than for nuclear energy? Do you have any numbers?
A poster above actually had those numbers, but the point is that the numbers all depend on what you count, just as you say.
Do these numbers include exemption from any compensation in case a nuclear power plant blows up?
Nothing is totally exempted but most countries (I think) have a maximum amount that the nuclear power company has to pay. However, I'm getting tired of hearing this argument as it is not specific to nuclear power! It's the same rules for hydro power (a dam can easily destroy a city) and other large-scale industrial accidents.
Do they include nuclear waste handling?
At least where I come from, that's paid for by the nuclear power companies themselves (there's a tax on nuclear power) with no governement money involved. I think it's the same in the US.
Do they include research and development?
Yes. Nuclear power plant designs come from industry and not universities. While universities help with researching basic nuclear concepts and materials, the same can be said for any energy source.
Slashdot Mirror
It is very interesting to see that so many people here are in favor of nuclear power. And the best are the arguments why nuclear is not such a big issue as coal or oil. The discussion in Germany is quite different. We are going to end the nuclear age in our country and have increased the output of electricity out of renewable energy up to 17% in the last decade. Based on current development in wind and solar power we believe that we can obsolete nuclear power by 2020 and meet our CO2 reduction goal as well. We think that we will reach that limit even faster with closing nuclear plant earlier.
That's really interesting actually. How are they planning on solving the base load problem (that wind and solar are intermittent)? Hydro is a good alternative, but that will drown a lot of land under several metres of water and kill a lot of wildlife in the building process. In Sweden, we shut down one nuclear power plant (Barsebäck) which was compensated by both importing coal power from Poland and upping the efficiency of the existing NPPs. Not even the Danes who have invested a *lot* of resources into wind power have managed to get rid of fossil fuels for base load.
But looking into the argument of coal kills more people than nuclear plants and their waste. This is definitely not true. It kill thousands after the Chernobyl disaster and something which is not counted in studies is the increase in cancer rates, babies born dead or deformed and the negative effects on the environment. So the argument coal kills more people is faulty.
Actually, it's not. The Chernobyl disaster didn't kill thousands, it killed 28 people. About 4000 were expected to die from different cancers (mostly thyroid) but the actual numbers seem to be a lot lower now that we're 25 years into the future. The increase in cancer rates are included in the statistics and they're low.
What's not included is the amount of radioactive substances released by coal power plants -- they're a lot higher than from nuclear power plants. Therefore, more people die from cancer caused by coal power than nuclear power every year, not to mention the other substances that's being let out into the atmosphere ...
If you're able to build a society on 100% renewable energy, then that's obiously a lot better than nuclear power. However, given the track record of renewables, I don't think it's actually doable without significant specialized natural resources (i.e. Iceland can use geothermal, Sweden has a lot of large rivers, etc.).
I hate to state the bleeding obvious, but it seems that I must.
Why would you want more nuclear power? There is only so much uranium to be mined. It really doesn't matter how long estimates say the uranium reserves will last, there is still only so much to be had, and then what?
You need to put the the time you're talking about in perspective. Fissionable fuel is a finite resource in the same way as land to build houses upon or the Sun (both will fail in about 5 billion years). Uranium lasts another ~250 years in the *current* reactor designs (extracting ~1% of the fuel value of the uranium), breeder reactors will lengthen this to about a hundred times longer. Then after that there's thorium that lasts around 100 000 years. However, I sincerely hope we develop a better energy source before that runs out ...
for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.
All phones I've tried out does this (although that's just Ericsson, SonyEricsson, Nokia and Samsung) over the last ~10 years. I think most phones can't be powered off completely without removing the battery.
They have, they are designed to contain the molten core in the pressure vessel (as in TMI) or, worst case, in the concrete foundation below (constructed for the purpose of retaining a meltdown). If I understand everything correctly, it is the spent fuel pools that are the problem (although they have successfully filled them with some more water now I think?). It seems those were pretty badly located (outside of containment, on top of the reactors) in the design. There's also some issues about the wetwell around the reactor, it seems it wasn't such a brilliant design idea.
They did -- the only problem was, they only planned for one that was a few meters high (and not ten). One solution is just increasing the height of tsunami barriers, but that somehow that feels like inviting a 15 meter high tsunami next time ...
The Fukushima meltdown didn't have to happen: Japan Nuclear Disaster Caps Decades of Faked Reports, Accidents. I've read other reports of non-functioning standby diesels in US-based boiling water reactors. Do you really think it's any better here or whereever you live?
While I agree with the point of your post, I must point out that in the Fukushima case the standby diesels *did* work. It was just that they weren't really compatible with a 10 metre tsunami. However, up to the point of getting swallowed by it, they worked fine on all reactors.
It's taken an 8.9 scale earthquake to start causing problems with these reactors
This argument is a fallacy, in 2002 the David-Besse reactor passed inches away of a loss of coolant accident with impossibility to insert the control rods from a single leak.[..]
No that argument is *not* a fallacy. If you want to include near misses, you have to do that for all other forms of comparable energy generation as well. How many near misses are there per year for oil power plants? Oil refineries? Coal mines? I'll bet there's just as many there.
The local residents have been given many days warning of the problems. If anyone gets hurt it will be because they were not listening.
The residents have been told there's nothing to fear for a simple reason: in case of a major radiation leak there is nothing to do anyway, it's impossible to evacuate a whole country. So the guys can only do their best and hope for the best.
No, that's not true either. All within a radius of 20 km have been evacuated already. The zone of alienation around Chernobyl is 30 kilometres, and that's around the worst nuclear disaster we've ever had.
Did you not notice that more people were injured in the oil refinery inferno than the nuclear reactors so far?
That's a totally fallacious and ludicrous argument that is unfortunately parroted all the time. First this only points to how sloppily the oil and coal industries are (cf BP oil spill), not how safe nuclear is. But above all this is akin to driving at 100mph and saying "I haven't had any major accident yet, see how safe my driving is?" Except the guy is not a motorist, he's a school bus driver with one million kids in his bus.
No, it's not, it's a fair and square argument. However, as to your point, we can establish that more people die every year from coal pollution than what's died in all nuclear power plant accidents combined since we started using it. Of course, nothing is 100% safe all the time, but if you want to discuss safety, nuclear power is the safest alternative we have for baseload power generation. That's not to say this accident is really, really bad and people will probably die.
Pirated software is free. There is no way to compete with that at any price. People who are willing to pirate software will, no mater what the software costs.
My favorite response to this is "bottled water": the bottled water industry successfully competes with tap water, even though the price is outrageously higher. That's because, in the consumers eyes, they add value. Competing with (almost) free works just fine.
I wasn't aware that Japan had nuclear reactors, it was a really dumb idea for them to do.
Well, they haven't really got any alternative as they haven't got a lot of rivers to use for hydropower and they probably didn't want to go fossile.
In the US the few nuclear reactors we have are designed so that if power is lost to the core the control rods fall into the core and the fuel rods fall out and the reaction stops. The problem is that if a reactor like that suffers and earthquake you can end up in a position where the rods get jammed and the assurance of an automatic shutdown disappears.
From what I've gathered it's a bit of a moot point as these reactors were apparently built upside down such that they have to have constant power to keep the reactor offline.
That's wrong, sorry. What you're thinking of is probably that the control rods go in the other way, but that doesn't mean they need to have constant power. The power requirements are because the reactors need cooling for a week or so after the nuclear reaction has stopped (it's the same for any BWR or PWR), because of decay heat from the radioactive isotopes that were formed when the reaction was going. That means it's the same for US reactors (or any other country, for that matter). Newer designs incorporate passive safety measures so they can better cope with loss of plant power.
What? There are no graphite rods in the Fukushima reactors, the neutron moderation is done by means of ordinary water. What you're talking about is a design flaw of *RBMK* reactors, i.e. the Chernobyl-type. Which, besides the graphite moderator, graphite-tipped control rods, lack of containment structure and control rods going in from below, had a number of other design faults, one of which was the ability to turn off all automatic safety systems.
There is no danger to people living around the reactor from a *nuclear* standpoint. The usual dangers apply for the hydrogen explosions, though.
"Obiously"? No, this will be exactly like Three Mile Island because this is the almost same type of accident (although the initial cause and reactor designs differs a bit). Thus, the end result will be a few totally hosed reactors and no radiation leakage to speak of to the environment (and electricity shortage for the Japanese people). That, and the clean-up from the worst earthquake and tsunami disaster to hit Japan in modern time.
FYI, the TMI accident alone was enough to scare a lot of countries away from nuclear power, *then* came Chernobyl.
All energy sources are subsidised. Nuclear is probably the least subsidised one, as the subsidies are mostly governement-backed loans and not direct monetary contributions.
My take is that he's probably more qualified to make statements than >99% of the people who's make them ...
I don't quite get why everyone on Slashdot is saying "there's just hysteria here, nuclear power is safe!" and posting strange analogies to bridge-building, steam engines and the like. It's almost a backlash against popular opinion (and the fact) that using nuclear power can have negative consequences.
Mostly because they feel that there is an illogical fear of nuclear power in general and people scream "Beware of the invisible danger and think of the children!" as soon as we have any type of nuclear accident.
The problem is that it's not just a matter of "how many people die" or "how likely an accident is", but that the consequences of nuclear power usage and accidents are so long-term.
Of course, the consequence is just as important as the chance of it happening in any basic risk analysis, but remember that the odds are really really low. It took the biggest earthquake Japan has seen in modern history to set off this type of scenario. Thus, the risk is low.
Perhaps the hysteria is due to the nature of radiation sickness, and the fear of dying from radiation poisoning, [..]
It think you're spot on here -- people have an irrational fear of what they cannot control. This has been shown again and again in the past, such as after the 11th of September 2001 when people stopped flying due to fear of terrorist attacks, with a lot more people dead in automobile accidents as a result.
[..] but just because there is some hysteria over one aspect of a story doesn't mean that all criticisms of nuclear power generation are somehow automatically discredited.
No, of course not, and I don't think that's what people are trying to say. I think most people would rather wait a couple of months (or a few years) for this crisis to blow over until we start debating nuclear power. Having the debate now, during a nuclear accident, is just short-sighted thinking.
Consider that radioactive waste will remain harmful for 1000s of years - just an incredible legacy to leave the coming generations of humanity.
That's one argument that cannot be refuted, that's why it's a bad argument -- you cannot ask the children that aren't born yet if they'd like nuclear power. That's why we, as adults, can make an informed decision for them. For example: Shortly after the Three-Mile Island accident, my parents had the chance to vote how to handle the nuclear power problem (as it was seen back then), and this argument was one of the greatest in the debate. However, 30 years later, we see that we who weren't born back then (statistically) really like nuclear power and want it back.
Not all countries (Japan, for example, comes to mind) has rivers large enough to use for hydropower. There are also serious environmental issues with hydropower (you're effectively drowning a large area of land), and in the end, you'll also need to have something for the remaining 30% (which should preferably not be fossil based). Nuclear is good to have in the mix and for some countries, it's their only realistic choice for base-load.
Now that depends on where you live. There are lots of areas where the natural background radiation from radon in the ground gives you a helluva dose on a yearly basis.
Radionuclides are being released in an uncontrolled manner into the environment both from the seawater and vented gasses. Every drop of sea water that is exposed to the failed fuel rods will be contaminated.
I've seen no information on how they are cooling the reactors with seawater, how or if it comes into contact with the fuel and if it's being released untreated. Have you got some information that everybody else is missing?
Previous attempts to poison the core (slow down the reaction rate) with boron were not productive.
Boron is used to stop the nuclear chain reaction (as water is a moderator, it will tend to increase it). It has no relationship with cooling the reactor.
The entire site will very likely become a museum of engineering failure for future generations.
Or more likely the opposite: A museum over a 40 year old reactor design that even though it wasn't desiged to take this kind of hit, still did it and kept the containment (although the reactor itself i ruined)
Seismic activity and violent weather evidently played no part in the final design of this plant. Real nuclear power plants use a reactor design that allows for failure of external power.
This one was also designed to be operated off-grid. However, the earthquake also damaged the diesel generators to power the emergency cooling system, as well as the coolant pumps. Remember, this was a basic, light water generation III boiling water design, not the new fancy passive generation IV designs currently being planned.
The MAC adress is only visible to the first router. Unless your computer located in the data hall of the company you're visiting, they're not getting it. OTOH, two users will likely have at least one thing in the HTTP header set differently, even if they're the same version, and that can be used to track them. I think EFF (or some other such organisation) did a test of this quite recently.
What you're looking for is opportunistic IPSEC.
... or he could backdoor the passwd program. I think GP was just trying to make a point about computationally difficult hashes and made a bad choice of words.
Unless he's got a WRT54GL or some other Linux-based router that can simply be reflashed with a new (sane) IPv6 capable firmware. Go open source! :)
Why do you think the subsidies for fossil fuel are lower than for nuclear energy? Do you have any numbers?
A poster above actually had those numbers, but the point is that the numbers all depend on what you count, just as you say.
Do these numbers include exemption from any compensation in case a nuclear power plant blows up?
Nothing is totally exempted but most countries (I think) have a maximum amount that the nuclear power company has to pay. However, I'm getting tired of hearing this argument as it is not specific to nuclear power! It's the same rules for hydro power (a dam can easily destroy a city) and other large-scale industrial accidents.
Do they include nuclear waste handling?
At least where I come from, that's paid for by the nuclear power companies themselves (there's a tax on nuclear power) with no governement money involved. I think it's the same in the US.
Do they include research and development?
Yes. Nuclear power plant designs come from industry and not universities. While universities help with researching basic nuclear concepts and materials, the same can be said for any energy source.
The article concerns a molten (sodium) salt reactor, you are discussing molten sodium reactors. Different stuff, ya know.