Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor

You got 3.5 mil sitting around to buy one?

 

Nuclear-powered cars anyone? 100,000 miles on one fill-up of weapons-grade plutonium. But the paperwork required to get that fill-up is going to be a bitch.

 

WInd turbines in my back yard, yeah why not?
Solar collectors in my back yard, yeah why not?
Prius in my back yard, well hell yeah, why not?
Energy consumption reduction in my home, yeah why not?
A nuclear power station in my back yard, no bloody way!!
I don't care if the thing is small enough to put in your pocket and runs on Mars Bars, no way!

I live in a nuclear free state and I intend to die in a nuclear free state.
However if you want to buy some of our uranium we have plenty, but keep the waste, we don't want it back.

 

Where did you find that price?

 

200kW x 24 hours per day x 365 days per year x 40 years x $0.05 per kWh = $3,504,000
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]I extrapolated, granted it's just a rough estimate based upon what the article provides. Who knows though the 5 cents per kWh could be based upon the cost of the fissile material instead.

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That $3.5m figure does NOT include all startup, operating or materials preparation costs.

In reality you're looking at more like a $15,000,000 venture, after you talk about necessary licensing, materials acquisition, and training of a highly skilled staff for 24x7 attendance at the plant.

~ dan ~

 

I think the idea is that they could chain many of them together or carry them on smaller nuclear-powered vehicles. Now a whole new class of ship will be easily powered by nuclear propulsion, as well as the fact that this is a step toward a nuclear generator-powered satellite.

Satellites are often labeled as "nuclear powered" but this is a misnomer. The radioactive elements in satellite batteries currently used are only there to radiate some heat, which unevenly heats one of the junctions between two wires of unequal electron potential connected in a loop. This is called the "Seebeck effect" and the power generation is most appropriately labeled "thermoelectric power."

This new step toward decreasing the size of a nuclear reactor gives us another shot at a real nuclear reactor powering a satellite.

~ dan ~

 

Well if it's $15 million then the cost per kWh jumps to 21 cents, which IMO isn't worth it. I'm curious what the costs are in Japan as opposed to the good ol US. I still say stick with solar & wind for that cost.

 

So what is exactly "new" here? The reactor on the submarine NR-1 has been operating since the late 1960s and is just as small. It has had no incidents and is operated by a very small crew.

The physics is unchanged, the fission products are the same bad stuff, and the disposal problems are still unsolved.

 

I'd like to see a diagram of a nautical nuclear reactor. I bet it's awesome. But you're right on both counts. It's radioactive poison producing different radioactive poison.

 

Why the nuclear phobia? Because of the waste?

Most of the "waste" from our reactors could be burned in a properly designed reactor. With the proper design, the amount of waste would be reduced by over 95%, and the waste that *is* produced would have a much shorter half-life than what is considered to be waste by today's reactors.

 

Maybe what's new is that they're promoting it for civilian use. A military submarine at least is run by people trained to defend it. A civilian reactor would be much more vulnerable to attack, since its crew are trained only to operate it. And given municipal finances, it would probably have no full-time guards, or might have one cop on duty at most.

What you are describing is a breeder reactor. And what you say is basically true. The problem is that the re-processing of the fuel is the same technology as the production of weapons-grade fissile materials, and the proliferation of this technology is likely to lead to the uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear weapons, until every tin-pot dictator in the world, and a few of the larger terrorist organizations, have nukes in their arsenals

 

Having operated nuclear reactors and overseen waste and maintenance operations, this makes no sense to me. Radioactive "Waste" falls into many different categories, each one handled differently. There is the nuclear fuel waste which is plutonium and other fission/nuclear reaction products. I think this is what you are talking about. Let's use Daniel's answer for this.

There is the radioactive infrastructure left when a plant is closed down. How exactly does one "burn" a decommssioned nuclear plant to reduce this waste by 95%? And finally there is the operating material waste generated from nuclear repairs and operation (think of the stuff in the primary water filters and the anticontamination clothing left over after cleaning a spill). How does one burn the TONS of this material generated over the years of reactor operation. Most of it is low level contamination that would become very high level contamination if "burned" in a reactor.

 

The real problem with disposal is the cost and energy required in properly handling such waste. We have that site in New Mexico commissioned at Yucca Mountain; seriously who wants that under their back yard? "Mommy, can I go out and play in the warm goop?"

A small-scale nuclear reactor is not likely to be more cost-effective than a large, high-volume nuclear power plant; nothing is ever as efficient than its bulk-output counterpart (enter Wal-Mart). The smaller nuclear reactor is just more portable.

~ dan ~

And more concealable, if you're a dictator in a tiny country.

 

1. The fuel is highly radioactive and can't be handled without specialized equipment. This is a safety benefit because it reduces the number of groups that could successfully re-process the fuel.

2. The fuel recycling facility is on-site, so there is no transportation, and thus no opportunity to steal the material.

3. The fuel is not suitable for use in nuclear weapons without purification in expensive facilities.

4. The reactor can burn existing weapons material, eliminating it.

5. There is enough fuel in the US to provide our power needs for 100,000 years.

6. Low-level radioactive waste is reduced compared to current nuclear plants.

From http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/ifr/anlw.html:

Dave

 

OK, I'll make a video of the armored recycle truck pulling up and the guys with the lead suits getting out to pick up the used plutonium........or maybe a YouTube of the guy next door who forgot that this morning was recycle pick up day, rushing out in his underwear trying to push his 600 pound lead recycle bin to the curb.

One of our former governors here in Washington (Dixie Lee Ray for whom I voted once believing she would bring a feminist and Democratic perspective to Olympia; she brought neither) once opined that we could rocket nuclear waste into outer space. At the going rate of 5000 bucks a pound to put something in orbit, THAT sounds like a great idea! For only 20,000 bucks a month, you can have your household "nukular" waste picked up and sent into orbit.

One possible use of a small reactor would be to supply power in rural areas where there is no power grid or natural power source like rivers or wind, or where the cost of establishing a power grid are prohibitive. But proponents of nuclear power don't talk about the waste. From the dawn of the nuclear age, proponents have never talked about or adequately dealt with the waste. We are still trying to get the Gov't to clean up Hanford. Until they do, and until there is a realistic solution, I'm reluctant to trade possible CO2 reduction for assured nuclear poisoning.

 

The promise that the fuel would be recycled on-site is an easy promise to make (for politicians, who are so good at making empty promises) but a much harder one to keep. A much more likely scenario would be a central re-processing plant receiving spent fuel and shipping out enriched fuel. They told us nuclear power would be too cheap to meter. they lied. They told us it would be clean. They lied. (Mine sites, and fuel processing sites are contaminated, and even the Columbia River is showing traces of radioactive pollution.) They told us the waste would not be an issue but they still do not have a long-term storage facility and the short-term on-site storate facilities are now holding double what they were designed for. They lied. Whoever is saying that they'd keep everything on-site for breeder reactors is lying.

And they sure as hell would not have re-processing on site for neighborhood-size breeder reactors.