In this episode we interview Per Peterson, professor at one of UC Berkeley's Nuclear reactors groups. He’s the world expert on Fluoride Salt Cooled High Temperature reactors and a founder of Kairos Power, an Oakland, CA based nuclear startup, pursuing commercialization of that same technology. He has a lot of insight to share in this space including:
- The true cost drivers in plant construction and operations
- Civil nuclear energy from the perspective of non-proliferation
- Public misunderstandings around nuclear waste
- Theories around various safety design approaches
- Integral effects test facilities and their role in new reactor technology development
- How market failures make it challenging to develop new reactors
- Opportunities to borrow learnings from the success of the revitalization of the private space industry
