Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

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 [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home.'

Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.

The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.'

The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. 'They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,' said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. 'We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.'

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

'You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts,' said Deal. 'You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.'

Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.

TerryRC wrote:I love the mini plants idea. Why will it take five years to get them going? Perhaps the Obama administration can add regulations enough to make it take 10 years.

Eight years of Bush hasn't put one in my backyard.

It isn't as if he took great strides to deregulate the nuclear power industry.

Keep blaming it in the "liburls" when the "conservatives" have allowed themselves to be lobbied into ineffectualness by the gas and coal industries.

Fix the problem, not the blame.

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years,

bmd wrote:Only an idiot or numbnuts would advocate putting hundreds or thousands of potential Superfund sites across the country. This whole scheme sounds like something out of the LaRouche camp.

Stephanie wrote:Only a fearmongering twit would use the phrase "potential Superfund site" to describe safe, clean, affordable, nuclear power.

Federal officials, concerned that leaking chemicals might mix and produce ''an uncontrollable situation,'' began to stabilize the site. But in late August, workers stumbled upon something far more unstable, and thus far more dangerous, than the chemicals that had been discovered initially: It was the cylinder of hydrogen cyanide, leaning against a crumbling concrete wall in a roofless storage shed. After building a curtain of sandbags around the cylinder, Federal managers sought help from experts.

Manufactured for Two Decadesv

The cylinder and its contents were manufactured from 1948 to 1968 by the American Cyanamid Company, one of the nation's largest chemical manufacturers. Hydrogen cyanide was generally used as an insecticide by exterminators, grain elevators and furriers. But it was also useful in various chemical processes, and Elmer A. Fike, from whom Artel acquired controlling interest in the plant two years ago, said in an interview today that he bought the cylinder of hydrogen cyanide to conduct laboratory experiments there in the 1960's.

American Cyanamid was aware that hydrogen cyanide was unstable and, during the two decades when the chemical was on the market, required customers to return cylinders every 90 days so that they could be cleaned and refilled.

Mr. Fike, who from November 1980 to February 1987 was cited 14 times by state and Federal inspectors for numerous violations of environmental laws, described himself in the interview as ''not a good housekeeper.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3DC1E3CF933A0575AC0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Stephanie wrote:I wonder how many small nuclear reactors already exist in this state that you're all simply unaware of.

Let me give you an example. About a decade or so ago a friend of mine who worked for Millstone in CT told me that URI had a nuclear reactor. I didn't believe him. Sure enough, they did!

They exist in many places already and you aren't even aware of it.

The Bhopal disaster was an industrial disaster that occurred in the city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, resulting in the immediate deaths of more than 3,000 people, according to the Indian Supreme Court. A more probable figure is that 8,000 died within two weeks, and it is estimated that an additional 8,000 have since died from gas related diseases[1][2].

The 1985 reports[10][11][12] give a quite clear picture of what led to the disaster and how it developed, although they differ in details.

Factors leading to this mega-gas leak include:

* The use of hazardous chemicals (MIC) instead of less dangerous ones
* Storing these chemicals in large tanks instead of several smaller ones
* Possible corroding material in pipelines
* Poor maintenance after the plant ceased production in the early 1980's
* Failure of several safety systems (due to poor maintenance and regulations)

Plant design and economic pressures to reduce expenses contributed most to the actual leak. The problem was then made worse by the plant's location near a densely populated area, non-existant catastrophe plans, shortcomings in health care and socio-economic rehabilitation, etc.

ziggy wrote:No. But it was one of those things left up to the chemical company "experts" to take care of.

And the people paid with their lives.