Bonrad retweeted
Today, I'm excited to welcome Andy Lambert to Valar Atomics as Chief Production Officer.
Andy has led an extraordinary career in manufacturing. As VP of Production at SpaceX, Andy took Falcon 9 from a fledgling single-use rocket to the world's most reliable launch vehicle and first orbital-class self-landing system, while also industrializing Falcon Heavy production and leading quality for America's primary human-rated spacecraft, Crew Dragon.
Those who know me best know my particular style of hiring executives; that is, not hiring them until I've found the best in the world. It has taken me three years to find somebody that I feel is capable of executing on our mission to turn nuclear energy from a construction industry to one based on vertically integrated mass-manufacturing and rapid deployment.
If you prick Valar Atomics in any place, you will find that we bleed scale. Every decision in our architecture has been meticulously and ruthlessly honed for building not tens of reactors, but thousands.
Nuclear reactors are simple machines, but real scaled production is very hard. I wanted to find somebody who has lived through production hell of a novel system where the safety of human life hangs in the balance.
Andy started his career working on the Harrier for the Royal Air Force, then moved into production at BMW. At SpaceX, Andy was responsible for the production of Falcon 9 and the quality of Crew Dragon, two of humanity's most challenging and safety-sensitive products. After SpaceX, Andy built complex and novel energy systems at Heliogen, then ran production at the innovative and vertically integrated hypercar company Czinger.
This mix of novel environments, unprecedented pace, deep vertical integration, and life-safety quality is exactly what Valar Atomics needs to bring humanity into the atomic age and make energy cheaper than ever before.
But more than all of that, I found Andy and his wife Carrie to be incredibly kind and genuine people who are incapable of resting on their laurels. They are hungry to help build the future. My reference checks on Andy were all consistent: he fights hard to win, but he does so in a way that brings everyone along.
If you've worked with Andy in the past, or have worked in organizations that have been fortunate enough to have him at the helm, this is your chance to see him in peak form. The mission of Valar Atomics is to make energy cheaper and more abundant in the universe than ever before. We are doing this by becoming the first company in history to build thousands of nuclear fission reactors. This will require the absolute best people in the United States working harder than they've ever worked before. But our mission is worth your efforts. Join us!
Bonrad retweeted
¡Qué recuerdos! En 1998 inicié mi formación para obtener la licencia de Operador de Reactor y Turbina en el simulador de Almaraz, en San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid. Desde entonces, el entrenamiento nunca se ha detenido: hoy sigo realizando cada año cuatro semanas de formación en el simulador de Ascó que Westinghouse mantiene en L’Hospitalet de l’Infant, Tarragona. La licencia de operador depende precisamente de eso, de practicar periódicamente escenarios normales y de accidente en una réplica exacta de la sala de control. De hecho, nos examinamos cada año para mantener la licencia.
Esa capacidad procede de Tecnatom, la histórica ingeniería española hoy integrada en Westinghouse. Durante décadas desarrolló simuladores de alcance total que reproducen con precisión paneles, alarmas, secuencias operativas y accidentes postulados. En ellos se entrenan arranques, paradas, pérdidas de refrigerante o apagones exteriores exactamente como en una central real. Han servido para cualificar personal de Europa, América, Oriente Medio y Asia, motivo por el que Westinghouse la incorporó a su estructura en 2021.
El reactor para el que ahora se forman más operadores en Madrid es el AP1000 de Westinghouse, un diseño de Generación III+ de unos 1.100 MW eléctricos basado en seguridad pasiva. Ante un apagón total (incluso con fallo de los generadores diésel), el sistema actúa sin bombas ni intervención humana: depósitos elevados descargan agua por gravedad, la convección natural evacúa el calor residual y la contención se enfría gracias a la circulación de aire alrededor de la cúpula metálica. El núcleo puede mantenerse refrigerado durante varios días, tiempo suficiente para recuperar suministro eléctrico externo o interno. La reducción de componentes activos (como válvulas y bombas) también reduce la probabilidad de fallo y facilita la operación en situaciones extremas.
El modelo ya opera en China y en Estados Unidos con Vogtle 3 y 4. Además, ha sido seleccionado para nuevos programas nucleares en Polonia, Ucrania y Bulgaria, y aparece en los planes de expansión de otros países de Europa del Este y Asia. Cada unidad necesita operadores cualificados años antes de la carga inicial de combustible, de ahí la importancia del entrenamiento previo.
Madrid se ha convertido así en un centro internacional de capacitación: tecnología estadounidense, ingeniería española y futuros operadores destinados a centrales que se construirán fuera del país.
elperiodicodelaenergia.com/w…
Bonrad retweeted
Hats with the slogan “Make Nuclear Great Again” were handed out during Sunday’s ceremony at March Air Reserve Base.
“The first-ever airlift of a nuclear reactor and ancillary systems via C-17, opening a wide aperture for strategic nuclear deployment around the World”
Three C-17A Globemaster IIIs with the U.S. Air Force’s 62nd and 437th Airlift Wings participated in the transfer Sunday of eight nuclear modules - parts of a “next-generation” miniaturized nuclear reactor built by the El Segundo-based energy startup Valar Atomics - in a Nuclear Energy Initiative conducted jointly by the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy dubbed Operation Windlord.
The C-17s transported the reactors from March Air Reserve Base near Riverside in Southern California, to Hill Air Force Base, located outside Salt Lake City, Utah, following a ceremony at March which included Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Michael Duffey, the Undersecretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, as well as the Founder of Valar Atomics, entrepreneur Isaiah Taylor.
Once on the ground in Utah, the modules, part of Valar Atomics’ Ward250, a next-generation reactor design that uses helium coolant and graphite moderators expected to operational by the 4th of July, will be moved to Utah San Rafael Energy Lab (USREL) in Orangeville for extensive testing and evaluation, under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, established in response to President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
The RBMK as a concept was actually pretty cool. Low enrichment, but no heavy water required, and no RPV, making manufacturing easier
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SMRs exist and operate daily despite what most people think. The Russian model for civilian, commercial deployment of SMRs should be at the very least copied by Western nations if they want to have any maritime relevance in the future.
Google "Project 22220 icebreaker"
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