Posted on 12/18/2007 9:44:50 PM PST by HAL9000
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
You will also find out there the concrete-sealed site of a reactor criticality involving small reactors designed for Army use in remote areas. The reactor was designed to be operated by a crew of three. Sometime in the 60’s, I believe, the criticality alarm went off at the central operating area of the lab. There were various contractors working on nuclear power at sites separated by a few miles within the laboratory perimeter. All sites were serviced with emergency response from the central operations area.
When the central ops people got to the Army remote reactor site, they found all quiet. Only problem was as the responder approached the reactor silo, his radiation detector pegged out. He banged it against a wall and continued on into the building. Only when he got to the door of the reactor room did he realize something was wrong. The reactor vessel had obviously “leaped” out of its floor containment and it now sat askew in the hole, like a peg not quite properly in the hole. He also saw at least one body on the floor.
Eventually all three bodies of the crew were found and they finally pieced together the story. The reactor itself was not at fault. Apparently it was a murder/suicide situation where one crew member was having an affair with the wife of another crew member. The third member of the crew was caught in the conflagration when the wronged husband pulled the control rod out of the reactor to cause the uncontrolled reaction. That man’s body was located pinned to the ceiling of the reactor building by the control rod he had pulled. How do I know this? I used to work there and met some of those who had to clean up the mess.
I do hope this one really is failsafe and safe from failed human relations.
What a great idea for the 1950s. Today I have just two words for it. “DIRTY BOMB”
One on every block... oh joy.
Ouch! The first nuclear murder-suicide?
He didn’t make a breeder reactor. He just played with radioactive materials from smoke detectors. Achieving a self-sustained fission reaction is far more difficult and can’t be done with materials from smoke detectors.
The people who write the stories about him building a breeder reactor haven’t been through Nucl. Engr. 101, so they haven’t a clue.
An RTG isn’t a nuclear reactor. It just uses thermocouples to convert the heat of Pu-238 decay into electricity.
The body or the reactor?
This is a very bad description of the SL-1 accident. The operators made an error during a maintenance evolution where they were required to manually cycle the control rods due to previous problems with the control rods sticking during operations. The operators cycled the control rods too far which caused the reactor to go prompt critical causing a steam explosion, ejection of the control rod, and a reorganization of the core. All of the operators were killed by either blunt trauma or acute radiation exposure.
The initial response team did not proceed into the building as their radiation sensors pegged high. They waited for additional personnel with higher scale sensors. Then they sent in teams with a 1 minute limit.
I think you had better not listen to people who describe a nuclear accident from hearsay. You will certainly get all the facts wrong.
Minor correction: the operators cycled a control rod too far. This reactor went prompt critical with only one control rod withdrawn which was a major design error.
> The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor
...
> The whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour...
Note, this is a VERY small reactor. 200Kw diesel or natural gas powered generators fit easily in shipping containers and are found all over the world. You would need to deploy 5000 of these to equal the output of a single 1GWe conventional power plant.
Lets do the math here. 200 Kw reactor * $0.05 * 24 = $240 worth of electricity per day * 40 * 365.25 = approximately $3.51 million over the operating life of the reactor.
From that $3.51 million of electricity, you need to pay for building and installing the reactor, decommissioning and disposal after the operating life is finished, manpower costs for FORTY YEARS of operations, maintenance, and security. You also need to consider the amortization of the initial costs.
Security for a micro-reactor is a major concern. A suitcase full of plastic explosive shaped charges would turn this $3million reactor into a mini-Chernobyl.
I’d like to believe that this technology is “ready for prime-time”, but a back-of-the-envelope analysis suggests that the $.05 per kw/h cost described in this article actually refers only to the price of the reactor, and does not include amortization or operating costs.
This type of reactor is well suited for niche applications like remote Alaskan villages where refueling is difficult. However, I don’t think enough of these micro-reactors will be built to even cover Toshiba’s R+D costs.
It happened in early January of 1960, if I recall correctly, and the design of reactors everywhere was changed afterwards so that none of them could go critical with only one control rod retracted, even if fully withdrawn.
I liked the company, they made a decent product, but I have never purchased anything of theirs since. I am certainly not going to reverse that trend by buying a reactor. :)
ROFLMFAO! Best damn humor I’ve read in a long time. You ought to write a book. Thanks. Now just how am I supposed to sleep with my sides aching? Huh?
But how stable is Lithium-6, and how would one measure and/or determine its degradation?
You wouldn't need no stinking fill ups, either.
Hey 'Guy. How would you get a few of these past the NRC goalie? Downtown? In an apartment complex?
I can just see a couple of dozen little mushroom clouds popping up on the horizon or a few "deep" holes coincidently the same diameter as the disappeared reactor. Have a good day!
Westinghouse is Toshiba
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