Posted on 11/24/2007 2:53:23 PM PST by LibWhacker
New technology takes on energy crisis.
The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It’s shaped like a sake cup, filled with a uranium hydride core and surrounded by a hydrogen
Invented by scientist Otis Peterson, Hyperion’s patent for a hydride reactor is still pending. atmosphere. Encase it in concrete, truck it to a site, bury it underground, hook it up to a steam turbine and, voila, one would generate enough electricity to power a 25,000-home community for at least five years.
The company Hyperion Power Generation was formed last month to develop the nuclear fission reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory and take it into the private sector. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors.
Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn’t like to think of its product as a “reactor.” It’s self-contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn’t require a human operator.
“In fact, we prefer to call it a ‘drive’ or a ‘battery’ or a ‘module’ in that it’s so safe,” Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah Blackwell says. “Like you don’t open a double-A battery, you just plug [the reactor] in and it does its chemical thing inside of it. You don’t ever open it or mess with it.”
LANL scientist Otis Peterson filed the patent for the nuclear fission reactor in 2003. In theory, the reactor uses uranium crystals and hydrogen isotopes to create an internal, self-regulating balance. Because it’s so new, anti-nuclear power activists aren’t quite sure what to make of it yet. But ‘skeptical’ is perhaps too gentle a word for their initial reactions to Hyperion’s claims of a “clean” energy source.
“This whole idea is loony and not worthy of too much attention,” Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello says. “Of course, factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it’s possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost.”
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer would beg to differ. The group of 700 labs, set up by Congress to promote “technology transfer” activities between the public and private sectors, honored Peterson’s invention as an “Outstanding Technology Development” in October 2003 at its conference in Hawaii. Now retired from LANL, Peterson has become the chief scientist for Hyperion, Blackwell says.
Blackwell is a director of Purple Mountain Ventures, a self-described “adventure capital” firm specializing in commercial development of LANL technology. Purple Mountain also is the financial backer behind The Company for Information Visualization and Analysis (CIVA), a local company developing LANL pandemic modeling software. Hyperion’s reactor, though, has the potential to solve the energy crisis, according to Blackwell.
“The lab is doing a lot of work on oil shales and oil sands, but there’s no way to get power to those facilities,” Blackwell says. “So, this nuclear battery would be brought in and that would provide the power to run a small city of industrial use.”
Blackwell also envisions that the battery could be used at military bases, as well as in the developing world, where poverty is a product of a lack of electricity and clean drinking water. This week, Hyperion meets with its first potential clients, but Blackwell hopes to approach the United Nations and international humanitarian groups.
So far, though, anti-nuclear advocates don’t buy the claims advertised on Hyperion’s Web site (www.hyperionpowergeneration.com).
“The nuclear industry has never given the complete picture.” Nuclear Watch New Mexico Executive Director Jay Coghlan says. “Taxpayer subsidies and the environmental and financial costs of mining and enriching uranium and waste disposal are never completely factored in.”
With all the good it could do, I’m not so hyped on the possibility of small nuclear reactors being trucked around the country.
Envirowackos will do all that is possible to knock this down...
Tell it to the Nantucket Liberals who have stopped Cape Wind from building wind turbines because it would insult their asthetic sensibilities.
Yes, don't 'mess with it'. (Such eloquence.)
ping
27 megawatts thermal will translate into about 8 megawatts electrical. If he can’t make ‘em cheap, he’s not going to make ‘em pay.
“Encase it in concrete, truck it to a site, bury it underground, hook it up to a steam turbine and, voila,”
It would take a terrorist a weeks worth of backhoeing to try to do something with this.
Variable density, temperature dependent moderator, and they suck the heat out with a heat pipe. Someone else will have to comment on whether it is running in the resonance or thermal regions, or oscillating between them as a consequence of the feedback loop.
"0005] The present invention provides a compact reactor using such hydride characteristics to control and utilize nuclear fission energy in a new and different manner then previously attempted. A compact reactor can be economical and practical only if it is self-stabilizing and requires little or no active human control or monitoring. This present invention achieves control by utilizing the properties of a fissile metal hydride as a self-contained nuclear fuel and neutron energy moderator. If the physical size, fissile metal content and enrichment are appropriately selected, the metal will absorb ambient hydrogen, which moderates the neutron energies so that nuclear fission criticality is achieved. The temperature will then be increased by the fission reactions until the dissociation pressure of the hydrogen for that temperature is greater than the ambient pressure of the hydrogen, at which point the hydrogen dissociates from the hydride and the source becomes sub-critical. The dissociation pressure of the hydrogen is an exponential function of temperature so that small changes in temperature can initiate substantial hydrogen transport. Consequently, with the method and apparatus of the invention a dynamic equilibrium can be achieved where the temperature of the source is controlled by the ambient hydrogen pressure. "
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
While I like the fact you don’t have to open it or mess with it. But scattering these devices about will require some thought into how to decommission them, clean-up etc not to mention security issues.
Environmentalists are the enemy—a far greater threat than Al Queda. they threaten our vital national security—energy security. And America is falling for all this bullshit about “renewable energy” “green” “sustainable” “energy independence” “new jobs” “new industries”....etc. It’s all crap. We need to build new refineries and new nuke plants. The French get 90%+ of their electricity from nuclear. We get 22%. This is a scandal. And no more than 2% of U.S. cars use anything but gasoline. Meanwhile we are sending $1 billion per DAY out of this country to make our mortal enemies (Saudi, Iranian and Venezualan) filthy rich to fund an arms and terrorist expansion WE are funding while our heads are in the clouds about “alternative energy”.
OTOH, this could be one of those too-good-to-be-true-future-tech articles we see so much of.
If they can make one the size of a hot tub that can power 25,000 homes for five years, why can’t they make one the size of a suitcase, say, that can power a car for five full years of continuous operation? That would be a bigger story, imo, and is waaaaay too good to be true.
Read carfully.
Store to your hard drive if this intersts you.
For whatever reason, these kinds of things are never heard of again.
This is the last article about it.
One thing the Envirowackos have in common with the Islamowackos is they both want to see us living a 7th Century lifestyle.
Firefox ScrapBook plugin does wonders :)
I don't think you'd want to pop the lid open while it's running. ;O)
Yes. And all the while, we’re sending close to $1B per DAY to our good friends in Saudi Arabia.
Great add-on, thanks!
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