Nuclear Power Related Media Thread, page-3775

Shumsta - can understand your dilemma and as you say right now SLX may have an assailable lead but nevertheless you still have to keep your eye on competitors such as ASP (and Klydon) and also possibly CRISLA) but SLX have a real edge over centrifuge and the others in the laser pack. Problem however could still be politics and the influence of the US national laboratories - I understand it was ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) that killed SLX in 2004 with the American Centrifuge and then changed the mind of USEC who dropped SLX and backed the American Centrifuge (ORNL had a lot of expertise (commitment) to centrifuge and USEC consequently dropped SLX). In the event SLX were lucky to pick up GEH as their sponsor 2 years later but they had to walk in the wilderness for 2 years then. The Fukushima disaster also did SLX in July 2014 when GEH "put it on ice" after spending about US$500m but by that time the test loop had shown that the technology worked (although then as a batch process rather than continuous and as I understand it not too reliably). IMO we must be thankful for the persistence of the BoD and also that they had previously done a capital raise for projects (solar systems and datalogic) which they then dropped and used that cash to preserve the core Silex team and continue laser development in Lucas Heights. You will probably realize that a small highly skilled team operating over a long period is usually far more cost effective than large teams falling over each other. Sometimes I wonder how large high tech teams ever get much done with their inherent politics, need for training, internal rivalries and weeding out incompetence. Our luck was:

- we still had the core team
- the company had some money and perseverance
- GEH having secured the DoE tails contract could not scrap the project - it was a too much of an embarrassment to do this to their major customer.
- Cameco stayed with us
- the SLX/Cameco drove a hard bargain with GEH and GLE (under new owners0 came into existence for a song in January 2021.

WE (and the DoE) HAVE BEEN LUCKY - it looked a dead ringer to scrap anything nuclear after Fukushima. It now looks like we have ridden the drought and emerged from the wilderness to a world which is genuinely concerned about energy security and emissions free base load - eventually even Australia may wake up - we will see (but thankfully it doesn't matter)