Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor

Next Energy News ^ | December 17, 2007

[LibFreeOrDie]

designed to power individual apartment buildings

can last for up to 40 years

"Hey Ralphie boy, that box that's been in the basement for 40 years is glowing!

[RussP]

This sounds great. It can produce energy for 5 cents per KWh, but does that cost include the amortization of the initial capital expense? In other words, how much does the thing cost? Any clues here?

[Rennes Templar]

Waiting for them to become small enough to put in my car.

[shadowcat]

I’ll take 50 lbs.....

...and you can stick my payment

[HAL9000]

I read “Greenland”, thanks for writing about your adventures there.

[Soliton]

Toshiba bought Westinghouse Nuclear after liberal politics made it impossible to build nuclear plants.

[Talking_Mouse]

[Calvin Locke]

There's a documentary on one of those that had an accident.

I think the crew, three or four of them died on scene. One was missing, until somebody noticed a body impaled at the top on a control rod that was pushed against the ceiling.

That accident sort of ended the research into small, "safe", reactors.

I believe they buried it out in the boonies of Idaho.

[VeniVidiVici]

The anti-civilization Watermelons don’t even want clean diesel. I can just imagine their “reaction” to a neighborhood reactor.

They won’t be happy till we are all in caves - and they are living high on the hog.

[HAL9000]

Toshiba also sold machine tools to the Soviets during the peak of the Cold War that cost the taxpayers of this country billions in lost submarine surveillance capabilities.

I remember that - but now we have the national security problem of being dependent on the Middle East for our energy supply. These micro nuclear reactors could help reduce that dependency.

I'm hoping that General Electric and Westinghouse will make these things too.

[kAcknor]

at the per unit energy price quoted, the unit is worth $3.5 million

Interesting enough. It will be even more interesting when it size gets down to that of a typical A/C unit and produces 20KW @ $20k for 50 or 60 years.

Heck I want one I can put into an RV so I don't need no stinking hookups! ;)

Never satisfied I guess...

[ColdSteelTalon]

And soon it will be...

Mr. Fusion

[djf]

Twenty feet by six feet?
It’s totally flat?

Will it still work if we roll it up into a tube like we did with the old posters?
Wait, I gotta better idea! We’ll make them look like oriental throw rugs!

People actually get paid to write this stuff...

[John123]

new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks.

Oh great. Does that include 24/7 guard rotations or did we lose the WOT already and someone forgot to tell me?

[American in Israel]

5 cents per kilowatt hour, at 200kw is 100 bucks an hour, 2400 bucks a day. 40 years of that at 365 days a year is a paltry 35 million bucks and change.

Surely a group of neighbors that is tired of their electric bills could scrounge that up, somewhere...

[az_gila]

...and NASA deployed several to the moon as part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP). Thermocouples heated by radiation source. One entered the Pacific as part of the ill-fated Apollo 13...

From a NASA web site...

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)

The SNAP-27 model RTG produced the power to run the ALSEP operations. The generator consisted of a 46 cm high central cylinder and eight radiating rectangular fins with a total tip-to-tip diameter of 40 cm. The central cylinder had a thinner concentric inner cylinder inside, and the two cylinders were attached along their surfaces by 442 spring-loaded lead-telluride thermoelectric couples mounted radially along the length of the cylinders. The generator assembly had a total mass of 17 kg. The power source was an approximately 4 kg fuel capsule in the shape of a long rod which contained plutonium-238 and was placed in the inner cylinder of the RTG by the astronauts on deployment. Plutonium-238 decays with a half-life of 89.6 years and produces heat. This heat would conduct from the inner cylinder to the outer via the thermocouples which would convert the heat directly to electrical power. Excess heat on the outer cylinder would be radiated to space by the fins. The RTG produced approximately 70 W DC at 16 V. (63.5 W after one year.) The electricity was routed through a cable to a power conditioning unit and a power distribution unit in the central station to supply the correct voltage and power to each instrument.

[skinkinthegrass]

Kewl....Pebble Bed Reactor Technology
PBMR Development The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is a new type of high temperature helium gas-cooled nuclear reactor, which builds and advances on world-wide nuclear operators' experience of older reactor designs. The most remarkable feature of these reactors is that they use attributes inherent in and natural to the processes of nuclear energy generation to enhance safety features. It is also a practical and cost-effective solution to most of the logistics of generating electricity, with particular reference to South Africa today. PBMR's are designed to produce 110MW each which means that 30 000 average homes could be sustained by one such reactor. More than one PBMR can be located in a facility thus creating energy parks. It is possible for a PBMR energy park to be made up of a maximum of 10 modules which share a common control centre. This system allows sequential construction of modules to match users' growth requirements; as the area grows, so more modules can be added to meet the industrial and domestic needs for electricity in an area A single PBMR reactor would consist typically of a single main building, covering an area of 1 300 square metres (50 x 26 m). This area is far less than the area covered by a rugby field or even a soccer field. The height of the building would be 42m, some of it below ground level, depending on the bed rock formations as the building would sit on bed-rock. The part of the building that would be visible above ground is equivalent to a six storey building. There would be a unit control room, a high voltage switch yard, and a cooling tower for inland facilities and a sea pump-house for coastal facilities. Ten PBMR reactors produce 1 100 MW would occupy an area of no more than three football fields. These relatively small power stations would be versatile and flexible. They could be erected anywhere there is a steady and ready supply of water. They could be used as base-load stations or load-following stations, and could be adjusted to the size required by the communities they serve. By building a PBMR energy park near a base-load centre, such as a town or an energy intense manufacturing area such as the Hillside Aluminium Smelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Eskom would be able to improve the reliability of the electricity supply to locations that are currently remote from existing power stations. A PBMR close to such an energy-thirsty base load centre would also limit the need for transmitting power over long distances and obviate the need for contructing and strengthening pylons and high voltage cable systems. In particular the PBMR's would provide the country with a competitive option for coastal generation. Eskom has been investigating the PBMR option since 1993. At this time Eskom began its Integrated Electricity Plan (IEP) which examines on an on-going basis the supply of electricity on one hand and the expected demand for electricity on the other.

[RhoTheta]

Just read your Greenland story, but couldn’t stop until I had read the whole page. Great anecdotes! I was in the Air Force ‘61 through ‘65, and 5 months of that was Ernest Harmon AFB in Newfoundland in the winter. I was always thankful I didn’t get sent to Thule.

[pankot]

This is really gonna piss off Al Gore...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Sounds good.