Notices by publius (publius@mastodon.sdf.org), page 2

@DigitalStefan @libreleah

I have found an X220 completely usable with current Linux distributions for pretty heavyweight tasks. It'll handle video streaming, for instance.

@gemlog

You could get around it by discharging the whole load of fuel and reloading fresh, but that isn't good for fuel economy.

Naval reactors do exactly that, but (a) they have very different operating criteria from civil power stations, and (b) they use exotic core designs, with high enrichment and heavy loading of "burnable poison", to get 25+ year refueling intervals.

Continuous fueling greatly simplifies managing power shape and reactivity.

@gemlog @KayKap

As an interesting sidelight : there is no generic LWR fuel. Core-design calculations have to be run for each reload, and the assemblies have to be tailored to match the desired reactivity profile, taking into account the history of the assemblies which are not being exchanged (but may be moved around). AREVA figures suggest that this is a full-time job for a nuclear engineer for each reactor supported.

Meanwhile, each and every CANDU bundle is identical.

@gemlog @KayKap

Yes, the standard Russian deal is to supply the entire plant, plus fuel, and take away the spent fuel to their reprocessing plants.

If you have good reason (as, for instance, Ukraine does!) for wanting out of that deal, Western fuel fabricators can now supply assemblies of suitable designs. (The basic difference between the VVER fuel and its Western equivalent is that VVER assemblies are hexagonal and Western ones are square.) So it's not total vendor lock-in.