Mini Nuclear Plants Powering 20,000 Homes Each On Sale Within Five Years

The Guardian:

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[bh316]

Great! Maybe they should call the product "IMBY" (as in "In My Back Yard")...

[research]

Wind and Solar CAN REPLACE FOSSIL AND NUKES!

Here is one of many possible scenarios:

Portable high pressure hydrogen generators be cheap.

It's just electrodes in water.

You install rooftop solar and wind, perhaps geothermal, biogas, You generate, on average, more power than you use and get paid to pump it back on the grid.

You use some of it to hydrolyzes water and store it in tanks and your car.

You burn it in a generator.

1000 square feet, 100 square meters, about 100KW peak sunlight, 40% efficiency gives 40kw. Divide that by the average equiv hours of peak light and you get about 10kw average/house/roof for the most of continental USA.

10MWH average USA household.
Divide by 365 days, divide by 24 hours to get the average Watts: 1.2 Kwatts.

Car miles 12000 per year or a constant 1.2 miles per hour equivalent. Electric cars get about 5 miles per KWH. So only an average of 270 Watts average needed for travel.

The US government can support homeowner and business lease to own program for rooftop solar and wind since up front capitol cost are the major barrier to wind and solar. This will kick start production and employment.

See my profile for more.

[ocalasatpro]

Oh, this scares me. Can you imagine a war where these things are buried?

I can't believe the rest of the world would allow anything like this at all. Solar (or wind) power is the correct answer, I think. It all starts with the sun anyway, right?

[karela]

Encase them in concrete and bury them in the ground? How do you check on them and make sure there are no leaks? Bury them in the ground for how long? What do you plan to do with the spent radioactive material? Were you planning to just bury these things and leave them like time bombs for our grandchildren and their grandchildren? I'm awfully glad that we elected a president who thinks first of nice clean sun and wind. Wind and sun make your laundry smell good and they won't ever hurt anybody either now or a hundred years from now. You don't have to load up the dirty left overs and then argue about whose states the trucks with the toxic mess can and can not drive through. John McCain was all for nuclear, but he wanted to make it illegal for the trucks to pass through Arizona. We now know that a solar energy system ninety two miles on a side placed in the Nevada desert could generate all the electricity America needs---including plug in cars. All we have to do is create new jobs by building a smart energy grid so that we can move the energy to the places it's needed. Nothing bad will happen ever as a result of that and the desert dwellers will be happy about the shade the panels offer, so it's even friendly to the desert animals. Why would anyone choose nuclear waste over that?

[drweh2]

Why why why WHY is nuclear energy being billed as "clean energy" or "green energy"???????? IT IS NEITHER!!! The simple fact is we don't know how to dispose of the waste. How do you tell people 10,000 years from now not to go near a nuclear waste dump? Language changes MUCH TOO FAST!!!!!

[andresfusion]

Nuclear power is really the only green source that can produce baseload power anywhere and anytime.Th­ey should try to make this reactors sooner than in five years since there is a growing demand for alternative energy.

The nuclear renaisance is already happening, China and India are building dozens of reactors. France and Finland are expanding their fleet. The UK is also thinking of replacing their old fleet as well as Japan. Even Brazil and Argentina plan to build more. But here in the states we have some much red tape that we delay every project and add unnecessary costs. Even so there a number of new reactors plan in the USA.

If we really want to fight global warming we need to use nuclear power, its already 20% of our electricity compare to the diminutive percentage of renewables. What we need to do is to expand renewables and nuclear to lessen our dependence in coal and fossil fuels.

If you care about the environment you should be pro-nuclear. There is growing coalition of enviromentalists that support nuclear energy.

[ocalasatpro]

"If you care about the environment you should be pro-nuclear. There is growing coalition of enviromentalists that support nuclear energy."

That's complete hogwash. Not a shred of truth in either sentence. C'mon, man, get with it.

[4everdem]

Very nice post.

You are correct. There is a fast growing coalition of greenies who are pro-nuclear.

[research]

To bad we will run out of proven uranium reserves in just 85 years, less if we increase use.

[Anciano]

Who is going to insure them for the potential liability? What building department is going to grant a permit for that? How will the local firemen feel about having to fight a housefire in the basement of an apartment with its own nuke? This is another attempt by the moribund nuclear power industry to stay alive now that credit for large projects is going to be impossible to get.
Every American should know what the Price Anderson Act is. It is a federal law that allows nuclear power plant operators to avoid their 'personal responsability' for being insured properly. Basically, they are liable for a small payout in case trillions of dollars of property damage occurs. The taxpayers pick up the rest. The propagandists for the nuclear power industry use the term "no fault" insurance as though they were talking about parking lot collisions.

[ILObamican]

The 'local firemen' issue is a straw man.

The reactor, encased in concrete and buried underground, is designed to power TEN THOUSAND to TWENTY THOUSAND HOMES. Does anyone credibly believe that they're going to stick a $25 MILLION REACTOR in someone's basement?

Of course not.

The reactor will, however, power a small town by attaching it to the current electrical grid... not in someone's friggin' basement.

Factory-sealed.
No moving parts.
No weapons-grade material.
Virtually impossible to steal (because, you know, earth-moving equipment is SO sneaky...)

Until we can get on board with fully-renewable sources, this really does make sense.

[gfs5541]

Uh you had GOT to start reading stories and thinking about these stories BEFORE commenting. It makes you stupid when you don't do so.

[Tom Joad]

Open Letter to the President Elect:

Do we still need scientists employed at Los Alamos who think up these 'wonderful' nuc.lear ideas? Can we have a vote on it?

SIncerely yours,

America

[missbike]

What an incredibly stupid idea! Nuclear works by creating steam to run turbines- what about all that water and big ole turbines and cooling pools and all that nasty reality?
Since this has to be a joke- it's not a funny one...

[gfs5541]

And why is it? The reactor's small, has no moving parts, hasn't any weapons grade material and will be dug underground. Water is not used as coolant; it cannot go “supercritical” or get too hot This means it won't blow up your neighorhood or have a nuclear meltdown. My guess if the nuclear material can be reprocessed after the 5 year fuel lifespan then this is awesome.

[KillgoreTrout43]

Ever hear of nuclear submarines?

[Yves Papa]

Damn! How are they going to make these things safe if they can't make a simple division???

$25,000,000 / 10,000 = $2500 per home. Not $250.

Nah.

[merrill1]

That is cheaper than the high efficiency furnace or heat pump or the 1000 gallons of heating oil per year.

[Falbadd]

I don't see why they aren't developing nuclear "guns" yet. If there's a market and need for assault rifles, then nuclear guns should be next on the list of "I gotta haves".

[Pere]

The NRA is hard at work to ensure when they do become available, they'll be readily available to you, and they'll also help supress nuclear gun laws so it'll be easy to get one in the ghetto, if you need one.

[davusan]

What would really be cool would be a nuclear reactor the size of a microwave oven.

[RantingTommy]

hell yeah!

we could use it to cook with!

----------­----------­----------­----------­-----
'ere - Atlanta Progressive Jazz
Become a Fan (RantingTommy on piano):
http://www.reverbnation.com/ere
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[CaptD]

Remember the saying, Good, Fast, Cheap, pick any two...

It Is still true today...

I believe this is just another Anti-Green Wind & Solar press release designed to sway voters against solving our problems without creating another major waste problem for hundreds of years...

[ouroborous]

We CANNOT power the nation, today, on solar and wind. This "home nuke" article might be pie in the sky, but "real" nuclear plants can power the nation, today, without anywhere NEAR the environmental impact of oil or coal. I'm not sure the network environmental effects of hydro, so I'll stay uncommitted there.

The reason that some progressives like myself are pro-nuke is that, while it's far from perfect, it's still a *pretty* clean technology that we can use TODAY, instead of a *completely* clean technology (like wind or solar) that won't be able to take more than 10% or so of the load for the next 25 years.

You cannot make the perfect (zero emissions.­.. someday) be the enemy of the good (very low emissions, relatively speaking, achievable in the next five years).

[research]

we CAN power the nation with wind and solar sooner than nukes can, and forever,

[Ryno26]

Maybe our society hasn't matured enough for nuclear power or the current technology for it is unsatisfactory for the public. I'm wonder how many cave-men were terrified of the guy that was using fire. The >>long-term survival

[Rhuaidhri]

The overview says at $250 per home, it should as the original article does, say $2500 per home.

[Egalitare]

And even $2500/home is likely a highly subsidized figure. As someone who worked on nuclear containments for subs and carriers, Nuclear -- done right and by the book -- ain't cheap!!!

[natoslug]

Even ignoring the $250 or $2500 per home price, or the potential environmental costs, this doesn't sound like affordable technology. At 10 cents per watt, I don't see switching from my 6 cents per kilowatt hydroelectric power any time soon.

[norkas]

I am big time aganist this, futher more solar power storage and hit a record 33% and is going up.

Please do not look for nuclear power as a solution the waste cannot be nuturalized and in time will prove it is a bad decision.

Soalr is not in the future it is here now please do a little reading before anyone promotes this nitemare.

[research]

Solar is now at 42% for a 1cm thick passive concentrating panel.

[Star2000dancer]

No, the plant is $25m/each, $250 per home.

[ErnestineBass]

Try again...it­'s $2,500.00 each.

[repatriate]

25.000.000
---------------
10.000

= 25,000/10 = 2500/each.

It might be 250 per home per year over ten years.

It sounds like a really bad idea - what do you do with the waste from these little buried guys? Or are they designed to be yanked after 10 years and then disposed of centrally?

And what happens when some bright spark with a backhoe digs one out with the intention of cracking it open, or detonating high explosives under it? You'lre going to need one per 20k homes. That's a LOT of these little things. On the order of six to ten for San Francisco-sized cities (homes, but also enough industry that you need them for than residential juice.)

[research]

They haven't BUILT ANY YET!

They are BSing the price.