Miniature nuclear reactors about to start production

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

Very interesting.  Los Alamos has come up with miniature reactors that only need to be services and refueled every 7 to 10 years, have no moving parts, can't melt down, can't be used for weapons, and can power up to 20,000 homes.  Assuming half that amounts, that's $250 per household to produce enough power for 10 years.

Nice!

[BentonGrey]

That's a step in the right direction!  We could use some of those up here in Illinois.  Heating costs have just about killed my wife and I.

[GogglesPizanno]

Heating your house... how freakin repsonsible is that??
I want a Proton Pack!!

[thalaw2]

"10 cents" a watt is pretty steep.  I'm paying less than 5 cents now.   I don't see this thing selling well in countries with privatized electrical companies...unless the rich are buying them to power their toys.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Considering that $250 buys enough power for a house for a decade, I'm pretty sure he meant a different thing by watt.  It's one of those fuzzy terms.  Normally we mean 1 kilowatt hour, but I don't think that's what he means here.

[daglob]

Heating? What about runing your AC?

Bill, DEEP in the heart of Dixie

[BentonGrey]

Trust me, the costs are worse for heating.

[thalaw2]

$250 for a decade is probably not what they mean.  Perhaps installing it will cost each person $250 then they'll pay 10 cents a "watt".  This is a good deal for developing countries with power supply issues.  When I went to Ghana the power kept cutting out at the hotel because the power station couldn't produce enough power for the city.  Hotels rented generators for $500 a week.  The guy owning those generators told me he was cleaning up over $5000 a month from them alone.  He did other business too.    Anyway, developing countries should jump on this. 

[captmorgan72]

I live in a 120 year old Queen Ann house and last winter I paid just under $500 one month for heat. Gets cold up here in Wisconsin.

[Uncle Yuan]

That does sound like cool technology.  Decentralized power generation is how most of the developing world gets electricity now.  It just does it with loud, stinky polluting diesel generators.  It addresses some of the critical safety issues of nuclear fission, although the waste issue still remains.

[BentonGrey]

True, waste will still be an issue, but people will be a lot more comfortable with nuclear power if they know there isn't a chance of the station going critical and making them glow in the dark.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

$250 for a decade is probably not what they mean.

Um, no, that's the purchase price.  You buy the unit outright for 25$ mil, which can handle up to 200k homes, although 100k is used in that estimate.  After that, you don't touch the generator, it gets buried in concrete and doesn't have to be refueled or serviced for 10 years.  There may be some costs not being mentioned, or course, and the watt's mentioned are NOT stated to be kilowatt hours.

But it doesn't really matter here whose right.  It's still a nifty and useful technology either way, especially for less developed countries.  It's also likely to come down in price after a while anyway.