trichard - Slashdot User

Submission + - US Small-scale Nuclear Reactor Industry Gains Traction in Missouri (stltoday.com)

Submitted by trichard on Friday April 20, 2012 @08:17AM

trichard writes: From this article on STLtoday.com:

"Ameren Missouri is vying to be the first utility in the country to seek a construction and operating license for a small-scale nuclear reactor, a technology that’s appealing to utilities because of the smaller upfront costs and shorter development lead times.

The small reactors, about a fourth or less the capacity of full-size nuclear units, are appealing to the nuclear industry because they could be manufactured at a central plant and shipped around the world. By contrast, building nuclear reactors today is a more cumbersome process that must be done largely on site and takes years."

Submission + - Patent Gridlock Suppresses Innovation (wsj.com)

Submitted by trichard on Monday July 14, 2008 @02:26PM

trichard writes: L. Gordon Crovitz gives us this editorial about how broad, vague patents cause more harm than good. Interestingly, it's published in one of the most traditional media sources, the Wall Street Journal. Here's an excerpt: "It's true that defining intellectual property is hard at a time when new technologies upset the traditional ways of protecting rights, as debates over digital piracy make clear. But in the case of patents, poorly defined property rights for inventions are leading even the biggest companies to take desperate measures, including banding together to protect themselves against claims of increasingly broad and vague patents."

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