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

[Liberalrep1980]

Good lord!. This is scary. I'm sorry but nuclear sucks. They say "We can reprocess it." which means "We have no clue what to do with this nasty $#!%!" Not sure if anyone remembers this little spot of history. A bit ago there was a huge debate about what to do with the waste leftover. And they actually talked about blasting this stuff into space in a rocket. The idea was obviously shot down do to what would happen if the ship exploded. Ummmm, I believe it was something like we die. Just this week another Russian nuclear powered sub had a slight malfunction. Some kind of radiated gas filled some of the rooms, 100 dead sailors. Trinoble anyone? (I'm sure I spelled it incorrectly) Anyone ever seen what a person with radiation poison looks like? Between solar, wind, hydro, tidal, and geo-thermal, we could easily power our country. I think it will just be personal choice or a combination of them. Sorry, but the idea of mini reactors all over my country does not sound appealing. Oh, and what about people who live in earthquake prone States or countries? We always say things are full proof and made to hold up against these things but until it really goes down, you just don't know.

[ouroborous]

In the long term, when you factor in the network costs, centralized nuclear plants are safer for the environment than conventional fuels (not safer than solar or wind, but then again these technologies may not scale up to give us the power we need for a long time).

We progressives need to get off of our knee-jerk "no nukes!" position and seriously rethink nuclear energy.

No specific comment on this article, however. I think that large-scale nuclear reactors are a very different thing from tens of thousands of small, unregulated reactors.

[Rawkcuf]

Absolutely right! Just imagine tens of thousands of small reactors here and there run any old joe. There are already enough screw-ups to cause great concern. Imagine what kind of personnel it will attract when the mini reactors start hiring workers.

[research]

Cheaper till one destroys the water table, or get used to build a dirty bomb to render NY uninhabitable, or if you don't include the quadrillions of dollars worth of land over 1 millions years for waste disposal. \

They haven't even built one of these things. It's pure speculation.

[rywhite83]

You got the nuclear submarine part right, but that's about it. There was a malfunction with the fire suppression system and Freon filled some of the rooms and 20 submariners died. Nothing to do with radiation.

[myklwain]

this coming from the russians------it was just a little freon leak on our n-u-c-l-e-a-r powered sub-----just a little freon.

[JWCampbellSr]

Anyone interested in technical details look at the website of
nuclear engineering at UCBerkeley.
What you get is a HOT heat source. You have to build a power station around it.
Which is a leettle bigger than a normal house...

[lvogt]

Nuclear and hydrogen are both highly centralized, corporate controlled energy sources.
Independence will come from dispersed, personal energy sources like rooftop solar and wind.
It won't supply everything and it isn't the complete answer but it's big.

[research]

Hydrogen can be locally generated using wind solar etc..

[ouroborous]

But not in anything like the amounts that we require to drive our lifestyles.

Even just the "wall wart" plugs sitting around vampiring power in your house likely consume more energy than any realistic home wind and solar plant can generate. I wish it weren't so, and we should invest as much money as we can to MAKE home solar/wind feasible, but that's the way it is.

[BillMelater]

Well what is cleaner? Nuclear power or fossil power? Clean coal is merely a myth. Oil and natural gas are still blatant polluters. People need power and will get power. I think small reactors of this caliber will be much safer and greener than the bohemeth reactors of today. Between the polutants emitted by fossil fuels and the overall raping of the land to get the fossil fuels, I welcome this advance in technology.

http://billmel8er.wordpress.com

[SolarPowerGuy]

"Well what is cleaner? Nuclear power or fossil power?"

False dichotomy alert!

Try wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, tidal, distributed hydroelectric with provisions to run backward for on-grid energy storage -- and plain-old CONSERVATION. "Negawatts" are still cheaper than Watts.

[BillMelater]

Surely wind and solar and geothermal, etc. are the cleanest. But the practicality and simple real estate required for them to even come close to meeting our power needs is decades away. Small nuclear reactors seems to me to be a viable stop gap and perhaps even a basis for replacing the coal belchers that we now have. With the expected increase in electric cars for transportation, electric demand will only increase. Installing a few of these little self contained reactors could fill the niche nicely.

http://billmel8er.wordpress.com

[ouroborous]

Wind and solar are much cleaner than nuclear.

But they are also, at the moment, not scalable to produce the power we need. Maybe in the future, but not today.

For today, nuclear is a reasonable power source, as long as we're careful about its limitations (waste, nuclear proliferation, etc.)

[evekendall]

The Achilles Heel of Nuclear Power:

"… nuclear power is the most water-hungry of all energy sources, with a single reactor consuming 35-65 million litres of water each day."

http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/30/the-achilles-heel-of-nuclear-power/

[andresfusion]

Why then can nuclear reactors operate in the desert? like the palo verde nuclear power plant in Arizona that uses treated waste water. Here is the link:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/treated-wastewater-for-thirsty-power-plants/

[SolarPowerGuy]

They run natural gas turbines out in the desert, too. It doesn't make it right. As I recall, they pump scarce groundwater to supply coolant.

[Big0725]

I'm familiar with the Pebble Bed Reactors created in Germany about 40 years ago. Reading up on them, they seem extremely stable. After doing a quick scan on the Hyperion reactor, it sounds as if it's about 10 times more efficient the the PBR.

It's gong to be an easy sell for a small community, say a co-op, or a huge industrial complex, to justify the expense for these devices.

[Big0725]

What do you men by consume? The reactors I've seen use a very limited amount of water in the primary steam system. The massive amounts of water you speak of is used as secondary coolant and is mostly returned to the environment. I know this to be the case of the 2 reactors south of Miami. Go to Google Earth and look about 20 miles south of Miami, FL. and you see a bunch of cooling canals (168 miles of them). The plant dumps the hot water there. It gets cooled and sent back out into the bay, no more contaminated then when it came in.

[research]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i2E6H8NpzgdCh9Pc8_keKg_jCpBgD93T1GQ00

[research]

What an awful idea.

Still need to mine the Grand Canyon for scarce uranium,

Still have to refuel it every 7 years. Waste.

Still could have it fall into the wrong hands for making a dirty bomb.

Design or manufacturing defects could poison a huge water table forever.

Need enrichment technology suitable for bomb making just to fuel it.

See my profile for solar wind 10 years, T$.

[andresfusion]

Hello again research, I think you need to do some more "research" uranium is anything but scarce, its more plentiful than silver,tin, and its increasing with exploration. Not to mention that we can use thorium in reactors like the CANDU.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Occurrence

[research]

sorry dude, If they want to sacrifice the Grand Canyon,

it's scarce.

Get over it.

[Big0725]

Last time I checked, weren't we ready to fill a feakin' MOUNTAIN in Nevada full of fissionable material?

[sandiaview]

Why is this poison in the green section. It should be under anything goes for a profit section.

[DragonFly]

I completely agree.
Nuclear waste is anything but green.

[Big0725]

Neither is he exhaust from coal, gas and oil fired power plants. And those are the only viable solution for now. So when some can get me a solar panel that I can fit in my back yard that will generate at least 20KVA 24 hrs. a day, or a wind generator that I don't have to mount 100 feet in the air and can withstand a Cat. 3 or larger hurricane (I live in Miami), please get back to me.

[rywhite83]

Neither are massive sea walls running from Boston to Miami.

[rywhite83]

Nor are massive seawalls from Boston to Miami.

[andresfusion]

What poison? nuclear is one of the cleanest sources of energy there is. I encourage to travel to France or Finland which are by far more environmental friendly and have the smallest carbon footprint on the planet. Yet they depend heavily on nuclear power. Also you should read James Lovelock "Revenge of Gia". Dr. James Lovelock came up with the Gia hypothesis and its one of the strongest nuclear energy proponents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOaDY13bI84

[SolarPowerGuy]

IIRC France runs breeder reactors in order to avoid a problem with nuclear waste. Problem is, the end-product is greatly enriched in plutonium. Our military guys think that's insane, and rightly so.

[research]

Please tell us where the French dump their waste.

[Big0725]

Why is this an "Anything Goes For Profit" venture?

This is certainly greener than any practical mass generation device available today. And personally, I'd rather have a tiny nuclear reactor buried in my neighborhood, encased in concrete, then say 1000 120' tall windmills taking up a couple of thousand acres or solar panels takin up my entire yard, and then still having to be on the grid for power at night.

[SolarPowerGuy]

My solar panels occupy 400 square feet of my roof and I offset almost 100% of my electricity use.

Sure, I'm grid-tied, but everyone who does what I do contributes to peak load, which is the most expensive power.

[walk0nwalls]

And my dream of mutating until lazer beams come out of my eyes comes one step closer

[JudgeCCrater]

A new energy source! Cool!

[Kache]

There is more than one way to look at nuclear waste. My favorite quote:

"Nuclear power is also relatively green. Its only emission is water vapor, which quickly settles out of the atmosphere. The nuclear material, while a waste product, was radioactive on the way in, too. You aren't really producing nuclear waste. You are simply taking advantage of a natural process that would occur inside the ground and harnessing it for power by bringing it up out of the ground. By any sane standard, it is every bit as green as wind power."

[sandiaview]

BULL-CRAP!

[Big0725]

Interesting reply! Care to explain?

[SolarPowerGuy]

"You aren't really producing nuclear waste."

Untrue, you CONCENTRATE materials which are dilute in nature. A greatly increased risk is incurred by the people and places where concentrated radioisotopes are manufactured, used and stored.

Some nuclear fuel cycles produce waste products which are more hazardous than the input materials -- e.g., breeder reactors, which produce plutonium.

"You are simply taking advantage of a natural process that would occur inside the ground and harnessing it for power by bringing it up out of the ground."

Which is why geothermal power is such a SMART idea -- you can leave the radioactive material in the ground.

[research]

Wow, you are only off by a factor of 1000 times.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/DTNPM.php

that's right: 1000 times more radiation in curies after use in in a power plant.

[DMcD]

Ih , what a terrific idea this is (NOT). Your friendly neighborhood 'nuclear reactor'.

[robbor]

here's another mystery machine from Australia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efCelx7qe_M&feature=related

[DouglasStambler]

NUCLEAR POWER IS MORALLY WRONG, PERIOD.

[Kache]

So are knives, but I use one to spead my butter.

[jeffmorgan]

Fossil fuels are certainly more "MORALLY WRONG" than nuclear. Given a choice between less greenhouse gasses or more greenhouse gasses, I'll choose less.

Go Nuclear.

[bltmn]

Oh, please. A technology cannot be morally anything. Morality requires human beings (and vice versa, but that's a different topic).

The problem with nuclear energy is that the potential for destruction posed by a single event within a single facility is terrifying. But let's be honest about it - lot's of useful things kill people, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. How many people die from Natural Gas leaks each year? Carbon Monoxide from faulty furnaces? Automobiles (green or otherwise)? Coal Mining, for God's sake? Don't even get me started on the hundreds of thousands of lives lost waging war over oil.

I live eight miles from a nuclear power plant. Do I think about potential danger? Sure, but I worry a lot more about traffic accidents, drugs, crime, and about 1000 other (more likely) things before I get to the China Syndrome.

Take off the training wheels people! Nuclear power is the lesser of several evils right now. We need to do it safely, but we need to do it.

[Big0725]

I guess automobiles are morally wrong too? 31,000 + Americans were killed by them just last year. I still haven't seen a single person killed or maimed by an American commercial power plant.

[mamacat]

As many as 3,000 may have died as the result of recurring meltdowns at research nuclear reactors in northern Los Angeles County in the 1960s. The meltdowns were kept secret from the public until the information was released through the freedom of information act much later. Google Rocketdyne, nuclear accidents, santa susanna mountains.

The American public does not trust those who operate nuclear reactors, like they do not trust those who operate offshore oil rigs, because they have already demonstrated their lack of honesty, trustworthiness, and competency.

[robbor]

here's an extraordinarily simple machine that turns water into steam within seconds and produces 70% more energy that what takes to create it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh_-DUKQ4Uw

[wadenelson1]

I'm citing you for a violation of the first law of Thermodynamics. You can pay the fine or show up in court. If you insist on a trial you'll have a jury of engineers and physicists not folks who believe in free energy schemes and 100mpg carburetors.

[Myshkin57]

No way. There are ways of doing something like that without violating the first law of thermodynamics, but that isn't it.

[SwingingFromCenter]

The nuclear hate on this site is saddening. Nuclear works. It's cheap. It's the easiest way to address our energy woes. And if people will ever stop stalling Yucca, we'll have a safe place to store the waste.

[DMcD]

The un-solved problem of storage of Depleated Nuclear materails , radioactive pollution of potable water at nuclear materials mining sites , thermal polution , overheated reactors during droughts , Chernoble , 3 Mile Island etc. etc.

This isn't hate , its rationality , for survivals sake. Knowledge is a "good" thing.

[rywhite83]

I hardly think nuclear is ideal, but climate change is a hell of a lot worse than the dangers that come along with nuclear.

[sandiaview]

You go and live with it..leave us alone and be sure you and not the Federal government (taxpayers)provide the insurance and construction cost. All nuclear nuts never want to pay for it, just collect on the profits and they definitely want the taxpayers to hold them harmless. So much for the safety angle. Is this paid advertisement in the green section?

[SolarPowerGuy]

You live beneath Yucca Mountain then? Swell, enjoy.

[Big0725]

I agree that nuclear works, but it isn't cheap. FPL is building another reactor south or Miami. Prices range from 6 to 12 billion each.

[andresfusion]

This is a great step forward, making smaller and inherently safe and cheaper reactors is definitely the way to go. It reminds me of the peddle bed reactor Professor Andrew Kadak from MIT is developing.

I found it kind of sad that people bash anything with the nuclear in it. Nuclear technology can help us to provide the baseload power we need and can be built almost anywhere. Furthermore, it doesn't waste acres upon acres of land unlike wind or solar.

Most here are concern about the "waste", however is it really waste? It still has 90% of its energy. Yucca mountain is a huge blunder of money and resources. We could have invested that money into recycling the "waste" like the France, Japan, Finland among others do.

Please keep in mind that we are not going to build the same reactors like in the 60s or 70s nuclear reactors have came a long way and we ignore this technology at our own peril.

[wadenelson1]

>Furthermore, it doesn't waste acres upon acres of land unlike wind or solar.

Unless something goes wrong, of course.

[andresfusion]

Read the article before commenting, they mentioned safety issues; so even if something goes wrong,nothing will happen.

[Motes]

I am not really sure that wind or solar wastes land if we there are areas which are not being used (North Dakota). Of course semiconductor processing for solar panels produce there own waste which is quite toxic although not anymore so then what we do for manufacturing semiconductors in genersl.

[sandiaview]

Is this safe nuclear insurable by the people who are pushing it or are they looking to us to hold their greedy a.... harmless? Taxpayer funded profits for death traps..mining and using. Two headed goats in Grants, NM and birth defects and cancers there and on the Navajo land resettlement on the nuclear waste dump in Arizona.

[andresfusion]

LIAR! :If your claims are true, then why do medical studies, such as the one performed by Johns Hopkins University of over 30,000 nuclear workers, show no increase in cancer rates -even for the people who work closest with this radioactive material? Why aren't the thousands of nuclear workers who have been working in commercial nuclear power plants for the last 40 years not dropping like overripe grapefruits? And why do the people of France, where 80% of the power is provided by nuclear, have the *lowest* cancer and infant mortality rates and the longest life expectancy in all of Europe? Why is that?


[andresfusion]

f your claims are true, then why do medical studies, such as the one performed by Johns Hopkins University of over 30,000 nuclear workers, show no increase in cancer rates -even for the people who work closest with this radioactive material? Why aren't the thousands of nuclear workers who have been working in commercial nuclear power plants for the last 40 years not dropping like overripe grapefruits? And why do the people of France, where 80% of the power is provided by nuclear, have the *lowest* cancer and infant mortality rates and the longest life expectancy in all of Europe? Why is that?


[Big0725]

No reactor every built has been privately insured. Government always covers the bill. That's why government is always involved with monitoring them.