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Utopia Talk / Politics / Miniature Nuclear Reactors to be on Sale
NeverWoods
Member
Sat Nov 15 00:38:56
Miniature Nuclear Reactors to be on Sale Within 5 Years.


Hyperion, Toshiba, others, race to produce "personal" nuclear power.


Using technology licensed from the U.S. government, an Arizona-based company is planning to bring a new generation of miniature nuclear reactors to market. The Hyperion Hydride Reactor is not much larger than a hot tub, is totally sealed and self-operating, has no moving parts and, beyond refueling, requires no maintenance of any sort. The reactor will output 27MW, enough to power a community of 20,000 homes, says Hyperion Energy, makers of the new reactor. The first models will roll off the assembly line in five years.

Unlike conventional nuclear reactors, the Hyperion design uses no water for cooling, meaning it can be sited anywhere. It is designed to be covered in concrete and then buried while in operation, to reduce the risk of tampering. The reactor must be excavated every 7-10 years for refueling, but can otherwise be left entirely undisturbed.

"Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world", says Hyperion CEO John Deal.

Deal says that more than 100 orders have already been placed, from both the oil and electricity industries, as well as developing nations. The small size of the reactor makes it ideal for smaller, isolated communities which can therefore avoid the heavy cost of high-power electricity transmission lines.

Since power is produced 100% of the time, the total energy output is more than 15 times what the world's most powerful 400-foot tall 5 MW wind turbine will produce. The total cost is estimated at $25 million USD. It generates no greenhouse gases while in operation and, when one takes into account the total amount of resources used during manufacture, is said to have much less of a carbon footprint than even wind or solar power.

"We now have a six-year waiting list," says Deal. "We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama, and the Bahamas".

The reactor uses a uranium hydride core, surrounded by hydrogen gas. The fuel is not enriched to weapons-grade, meaning it can't be used for building a nuclear device.

Hyperion plans to eventually have three factories mass-producing the reactors, a step which will further reduce costs and increase the number available.

Toshiba is also working on its own mini nuclear reactor, the "4S", which the company says stands for "super-safe, small, and simple". The 4S is based on a smaller 10 MW design that can last 30-40 years before refueling. The 4S is sodium-cooled, and uses liquid lithium-6 to moderate the reactor, instead of conventional control rods. Like Hyperion's design, the reactor is totally sealed and requires no maintenance or operation.

Toshiba says the reactor will make power available for as little as 5 cents/kWh. A demonstration version of the 4S is planned to be online in 2012, and will be sited in the Alaskan village of Galena. After that, Toshiba plans to offer the 4S for sale throughout North America and Europe.

Startup firm NuScale is also working on its own mini reactor design.

http://www...ithin+5+Years/article13389.htm
TalonsWordsOfWisdom
Member
Sat Nov 15 00:41:14
It would be amazing if this became our main source of energy. I've always though nuclear would be the best source of energy until fusion is figured out.
iii
Member
Sat Nov 15 03:12:28
you are too enthousiast
something is fishy
Nekran
Member
Sat Nov 15 03:30:15
I want one!
iii
Member
Sat Nov 15 03:36:23
i still prefer solar
Hot Rod
Member
Sat Nov 15 03:45:15

Now if they could only develop fusion.

Clitoral Hood
Member
Sat Nov 15 03:46:06
that's gonna take a while, seeing as the only fusion we know of takes place in stars.
Paramount
Member
Sat Nov 15 04:46:38
I don't trust nuclear reactors to be safe enough.
Forwyn
Member
Sat Nov 15 04:50:30
Thats because you're uninformed.

Its physically impossible for a passive nuclear reactor to explosively meltdown.
Hot Rod
Member
Sat Nov 15 04:51:53

molehill, may I suggest that you do not buy one?

MurdeR
Member
Sat Nov 15 04:58:56

What could possibly go wrong? :o)

werewolf dictator
Member
Sat Nov 15 06:01:25
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

They entered the reactor building and found two mutilated men: one clearly dead, the other moving slightly. With a one minute and one entry per person limit, a team of five men with stretchers recovered the operator who was still breathing; he did not regain consciousness and died of his head injury at about 11 p.m. Even stripped, his body was so contaminated that it was emitting about 500 R/hr. They looked for but did not find the third man. With all potential survivors now recovered, safety of rescuers took precedence and work was slowed to protect them.

On the night of 4 January, a team of six volunteers used a plan involving teams of two to recover the second body. Radioactive Gold 198Au from the man's golden watch buckle and Copper 64Cu from a screw in a cigarette lighter subsequently proved that the reactor had indeed gone supercritical.

The third man was not discovered for several days because he was pinned to the ceiling above the reactor by a control rod.
Master Bates
Member
Sat Nov 15 06:03:41
I dunno about this. Nuclear energy is a great source of energy for us. But if it goes wrong, and everything can go wrong in this world, its very, very dangerous.
Hot Rod
Member
Sat Nov 15 06:05:06

Wolf, that was 47 years ago. Do you think the technology might have improved since then?

werewolf dictator
Member
Sat Nov 15 06:06:33
"Do you think the technology might have improved since then? "

may be they get mutilated body to radiate only 250 rads hour?
Forwyn
Member
Sat Nov 15 06:09:49
Don't be an idiot wd.

1) That was a prototype, and
2) This is the big one. IT WAS NOT A PASSIVE NUCLEAR REACTOR. IT WAS CAPABLE OF MELTING DOWN. MODERN NUCLEAR REACTORS USE A PASSIVE DESIGN, AND IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR A PASSIVE NUCLEAR REACTOR TO VIOLENTLY MELTDOWN.

Got it?
Master Bates
Member
Sat Nov 15 06:17:33
Time for someone to quote Isaacs Asimovs "Silly Fools" or whatever that story is called, when the high civilisaton of the universe notes that a little known planet has achieved nuclear status and is eligible to join the federation of civilised worlds. Until they discover that Earth is using nuclear power on its own planet. Then they get struck off the list with the words "Silly Fools" (or something similiar.)
iii
Member
Sat Nov 15 07:30:40
Hyperion Hydride Reactor is not economicly feasable, not by a long shot.
any passive reactor is not economicly feasable.
i will not argue with you cause it will take time for me to explain all and is much to explain and here i don't think it's worth a try, i'd rather talk to the walls
Hyperion Hydride Reactor is about subventions, corruption, diverted capital and finally a more expensive energy.
but i'll leave you with your sources, lol

Master Bates
Member
Sat Nov 15 07:41:03
"Silly Asses"

As the peoples of Earth develop atomic power, they are recorded as having achieved maturity by the Galactic keeper of records. But when the keeper learns that they have not yet penetrated space and test their atomic weapons on the planetary surface, he strikes them from the record, commenting that Earth people are 'Silly Asses'.

The author was influenced by the rival atomic tests by the Soviet Union and the USA.

Wiki
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 11:29:58
Clitoral:

"that's gonna take a while, seeing as the only fusion we know of takes place in stars."

JET got a Q=0.6 reaction going decades ago.
I (used) to work there.
TalonsWordsOfWisdom
Member
Sat Nov 15 15:01:46
Actually fusion research is pretty far and scientists would be able to actually build a fusion reactor right now if they had the funds. I'm not saying that it's ready to be put into production but the only real reason why fusion technology can't advance is because right now the only fusion reactor on earth is too small to create fusion. If more funds were used to created a much bigger one than we could make leaps and bounds in fusion research.
Forwyn
Member
Sat Nov 15 15:08:18
"Hyperion Hydride Reactor is not economicly feasable, not by a long shot."

Idiot. "The reactor will output 27MW, enough to power a community of 20,000 homes," - at a cost of just 25 million.

"any passive reactor is not economicly feasable."

Really? Is that why all modern reactors in Western countries are now built with a passive reactor?


Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 15:38:56
Talons:
Not quite that far advanced sadly. I work in nuclear fusion research (my experiment was on MAST, a second generation Spherical Tokamak).

Partly it's funds, but from my perspective the biggest problem is management.

The worlds fusion programmes are spread along lots of collaborative national teams, contributing towards ITER.

But it's still very much seen as and funded as a science research. There are gaping holes all over the place, mostly relating to the fact that the scientists doing the research are employed as scientists and therefore focus on their publications. And the vast amount of publishable material is not exactly useful in making a tokamak work. If this were a steam engine, that would mean obsessing about convection cells forming in the boiler as equally important as the pressure in the boiler.


Also, as you say, the budget constraints tend to lead to increasingly exotic modes of operations in order to get higher efficiencies.

The metaphor there would be like trying to design a modern formula one racing car before you managed to get the ford model T working.

It needs to be more like the apollo programme: Here is a big budget, make fusion happen by the end of the decade.


And then there is the other big problem, the main challenges to building ITER are engineering challenges (plasma facing materials that can withstand the enormous energy fluxes etc.), not physics problems of the plasma itself. Yet the majority of the focus of the research programmes are still very much conducted as plasma physics experiments.

All in all, I think I will not be seeking a job in the field now I have completed my PhD. I have a depressing feeling that the whole thing is about to descend into farce and implode when the budget gets "too high".

Realistically, I think we should be focusing not on making a fully blown advanced operation Tokamak fusion reactor, but rather we should build a fission fusion hybrid and get it into the market as soon as possible. The best people to solve the engineering and materials challenges are in the private sector, so we need to get this commercialised as soon as possible to get them involved in component design.

A puttative idea is a spherical tokamak actinide burner, with the same kind of plasma volume as JET currently has. With what we know already, we could probably get about 70% of the input energy back out as electricity, but if we an actinide blanket we could use the neutrons released in fusion to process nuclear waste by stimulating fission of nuclear waste, make a net energy plus.

Also it could function as part of a breeder fuel cycle for conventional fission.

Once you have industrial machines functioning, it is likely that the bulk of the engineering challenges would be overcome in time and allow further development into pure fusion devices.

That's my two pence, anyway. Fusion gets far too much utopian press, the terrible truth is internationally it is still a lumbering public sector bureaucracy, like NASA but without the direction, stuck in a 1970's mindset that it has to be utterly clean.
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 15:40:47
As for building bigger reactors.... that has been the answer for decades, and every time new physics comes to bite us on the arse...

bohm diffusion gave way to gyro bohm, and then neoclassical diffusion, and then edge turbulence...
it does look like the machines are now big enough that no knew phenomenon are waiting for us, but I wouldn't be toooo certain.
Turtle Crawler
Admin
Sat Nov 15 15:54:57
27MW for 25M is less than $1 a watt.. that is incredibly cheap.

It would be like paying $100 to run your 100W light bulb for 10 years. If i did that right now at 6c/kwh it would cost .1*24*365*10*0.06 = $525.

So if this price and result is at all accurate... we will see the world move rapidly towards nuclear as a safe low cost option.
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:12:16

Electricity is typically prices per KW hours, something like 6 cents I think is competetive, no?

So, each reactor can provide 27,000 kw for 10 years, or 2.3bn kw/hours, for 25m dollars.

So that works out at about 1 cent per KW/h. Not bad.

Are they a good idea?

Seriously bad idea. It would make it fantastically easily for people to get hold of highly enriched material (10 year life time, it's got to be near weapons grade enrichment to be so compact. Sounds like submarine fuel). Burying it under concrete is not enough.
Turtle Crawler
Admin
Sat Nov 15 16:21:48
6 cents is about as cheap as you can get, on the east coast i think it is more like 10-12c.

The terrorism argument against nuclear is one of the least subscribed to theories. These things are made to be burried, so getting to one is not a 90 second smash and grab. From what i read, these things are in college nuclear programs around the US already.
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:31:40
Turtle Crawler:

Not like that.

10 year life time and 30MW sounds very much like a nuclear maratime reactor, and that is typically enriched from about 30% to up to 96% (generally, the quieter, more modern subs use higher enrichment to get a smaller core, these things by their size sound like they must be pretty enriched). U235 compared to a civil nuclear reactors enrichment of ~5% U235.

Research reactors in colleges tend to be neutron sources etc. are utterly piddling in comparison.

Sure, you might make a dirty bomb out of the contents, but the theft would be noticed easily, and such facilities tend to have some kind of security.

Terrorist argument against a few large nuclear facilities is one thing, but these are clearly much smaller, more distributed things. Simply burying it is not sufficient. Particularly if they are basically repositories of weapons grade, or near weapons grade fissile material.
Mr Anon
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:34:10
I bet the environuts will jump all over this, though I don't have a clue why.

What could possibly be better for the earth than getting rid of burning fossil fuels in exchange for cheap safe nuclear?

Frankly, if this is true, I'd like to see Obama take 100 billion from that 700 billion, and build 4,000 of those reactors all over the place. How awesome would *that* be for our economy? Both today and tomorrow.

And Turtle, yes, *snickers a bit*, let's borrow the 100 billion if we have to. This would be a great investment. :)
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:39:56
Dude, you have a grid.

Build conventional power stations.
werewolf dictator
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:42:55
seb if this can be trusted uranium is enriched to 5% for hyperion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Power_Generation
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:43:31
Dude, you have a grid.

Build conventional power stations.
Mr Anon
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:46:35
Seb: Do that too. :)

I liked McCains idea of building 40 nuclear power plants. This seems to be an easier way of achieving the same purpose. Give me a group of scientists/specialists, ask them which way would be the fastest, most efficient and effective way to get cheap energy to everyone, and I'll vote for that. :)
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:48:11
hmm...
5%....
well, I guess if it passes safety, that's ok, but I really don't think that it's such a great idea.
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 16:48:58
Mr Anon:

As a scientist, dear god you do not want to do that.

You will get a hundred different answers, and none of them will be economic.
Mr Anon
Member
Sat Nov 15 17:01:17
Seb: lol

Point made and accepted.

But my point remains, I'd love America to forget this whole bailing out banks idea and spend 200 billion building us a whole new energy infrastructure. And this seems to be a good step along that path. :)
TalonsWordsOfWisdom
Member
Sat Nov 15 17:06:25
Thanks for the info seb
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 17:40:16
Mr Anon:
Bailing out banks is a necessity.

Market systems, in the long run, outperform the state when it comes to picking winners.

Get the private finance system back on line and that will sort out energy infrastructure better in the long run than having the private finance mechanisms implode, everyone hoard cash and leave only the Government as the sole source of finance.

The Government has (and I mean in general, not just the US government) a pretty poor track record of picking winners.

Any grand state based initiative focused on any one sector as a magic bullet is probably going to to create problems.

There are a host of good ideas out there: wind, solar, nuclear... but then there are things like green crude (modified algae that produce oils that are similar in chemical consistency to natural crude oils, which minimises disruption to the existing infrastructure), hydrogen from algae, bio diesel from non-food competing crops.
Mr Anon
Member
Sat Nov 15 18:09:20
"Any grand state based initiative focused on any one sector as a magic bullet is probably going to to create problems."

Which is my fear, that throwing 700 billion at an industry that so severely screwed up will create more problems.

Maybe, if we let a few fail, the one or two that survive will be the one or two with the best plans. They'll be able to get federal loans at the current 1% and make good loans to people and earn a great profit.

As far as I know, when a bank fails it doesn't just away, the loans are moved over to other banks, better banks.
iii
Member
Sat Nov 15 18:16:22
@Forwin: the idiot is you
i read the same source as you
now you must read that again, carefuly
passive reactors are 5 time less efficient (maybe even 10 times less efficient) than classic reactors
do you think that at the beginning they did not knew about passive reactors
you think that these are invented recently?
you are a fool that is good only for propaganda
Seb
Member
Sat Nov 15 18:36:36
Mr Anon:

"Maybe, if we let a few fail, the one or two that survive will be the one or two with the best plans."

Best business models, perhaps. But in the meantime, we would go through a prolonged period where there was no one to borrow from, cash hoarding was rewarded, and investment drops to a trickled and no finance available for startups. It would kill innovation stone dead in the rest of the economy.

We will be much better off engineering a soft landing than playing at harsh Darwinism. Sure, these big investment banks as they functioned are essentially extinct, but that doesn't mean we want the entire ecosystem to come crashing down with them. So, we prop them up, bail them out, and then we set about ensuring they work differently from now on.

However, one of the reasons the regulatory regime failed so dramatically is because the regulatory scheme was largely overseen by the government, that pays peanuts. There were more poachers, and the poachers were just better at understanding the systems than the game keepers.

It therefore makes me believe that any state initiative is likely to suffer the same flaws. The Government is not staffed by the brightest and the best, and it probably never will be.

iii:
Efficiency is not determined by passive safety features.
Forwyn
Member
Sat Nov 15 21:02:35
Seb: dirty bombs are a scare tactic, nothing more.

They wouldn't cause a noticeable amount of more damage than a conventional explosive.

Enriched fuel is really more dangerous than typical weapons in the hands of a select few.

Anyways, this reactor will likely be owned largely by energy companies, who already have security for their conventional sources.
Snuke
Member
Sun Nov 16 00:20:46
Wolf, that was 47 years ago. Do you think the technology might have improved since then?
---
It's still dangerous you old damn coot and we can't put the lives of people in danger like this, sure! The chances of something going wrong are basically nothing. But there is still the chance.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 05:51:12
"Efficiency is not determined by passive safety features. "

inefficiency is determined by passive nature of the reactor. i was not talking about any safety. safety problems are overrated.
an active reactor will be more efficient for the rest of all Universe's time.

when ppl stoped thinking?
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 09:27:37
Forwyn:

I had the priveledge of attending a lecture by Prof Peter Zimmerman on the subject of nuclear terrorism.

Firstly, dirty weapons are not going to kill a lot of people, but as economic and terror weapons they are highly potent.

For a good idea of the kind of impact, I would recommend reading about the Goiana incident. That is the kind of long term impact you are looking for. Sure, I'd happily walk across an area hit by a dirty bomb, but work in a job 9-5 shifts or live? Only after extensive decontamination. And in most countries, you would have to waive statutory safeguards on nuclear material to continue to use the place. A dirty bomb attack would then have few casualties, but create a great deal of terror and economic repercussions. Admittedly, this is not Al-Quaeda style. But then, not all terrorists are like Al-Quaeda.

In any case, for the aspiring dirty bomb builder, there are plenty of alternatives that would be better than this (disused hospital radio-isotope sources, as in the Goiana incident), RTG's scattered all over Russia (often found stripped of their cladding and shielding, which has high scrap value, and abandoned. One official report is of a RTG powered navigation boy up in the Baltic regions, found "bubbling away" in shallow water, the lead shielding having been stolen for scrap.

On the other hand, if you had 80% enriched uranium, you could make a gun type hiroshima bomb trivially. It would be low yield and low efficiency, but you could make a very big bang. It's not dangerous in the hands of a few, it's dangerous in the hand of an engineering undergraduate.

"who already have security for their conventional sources."
Look at the application though: it's clearly for remote areas, security is going to be lame.

iii:
"active reactor will be more efficient for the rest of all Universe's time."

Evidently, you do not know what passive or active means in this context. Whether the reactor is active of passive has no bearing on the "efficiency". One wonders what you mean by efficiency also in this context? Thermal, or burn-up?

Passive, in this context, means that the reactor is self moderating and if it moves beyond the required tolerances, the reaction is self damping and does not run away. It does not need active operator intervention to slow the reaction. Almost all nuclear reactors are currently designed in this manner.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 09:56:38
efficiency is about percentage of energy converted or percentage of profit. and yes, it does count if the process is going in a natural kinda way (passive) or as in "classic" reactors. the energy implied is the same
the money you must invest are the same
but
energy obtained
money in profit
are not the same
thus the effiency is not the same
what you don't get?

i said, the first option (historicaly seaking) were the pasive reactors (btw, it's simply dum)
then the conclusion was the NECESITY to build active reactors
active reactors were built only cause passive solution was not a good one

i wonder why you cling to such a ideea to use high technology products as ppl in stone age would do

i repeat, read carefuly
you'll see that this wonder project is already rejected by physicists and economists
read from beginning to the end carefuly
it's in your sources
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 10:06:44
iii:

Firstly, I am a physicist.

Secondly, I don't think you know what you are talking about.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 10:21:47
and you know that those wonder reactors are what they say, don't you? joker!
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 10:25:12
ah, i am almost physicist. last yr of studies. and took my exam on nuclear reactors.
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 10:59:13
iii:

These reactors are not aimed at efficiency. Certainly, you can build a bigger reactor that will run hotter, and therefore have higher thermal efficiency.

That is not the application they are aiming for though, is it?

They are looking for a portable supply for remote areas.

As for passive safety features limiting efficiency, the only way they can do so is by lowering the temperature of operation, but in most cases this is limited by locally available coolant in any case.

Hence, current and IV generation designs like Ariva and Westinghouses, which all incorporate passive safety features, yet have the highest thermal efficiencies of nuclear plants so far.
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:01:15
You could just about fit one of these things on a space shuttle to LEO.

Interesting.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:08:01
i read again
maximum maximorum efficiency is 6%
(energy)
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:11:31
@Seb: now that you are more explicit i agree with you. but for all population that has already electric supply lines we should use passive reactors
and of course, we should not permit the use of many passive units cause it's a waste of radioactive materials. and radioactive materials will end some day the same as fosile fuels
that's why i was not enthousiastic
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:13:31
found that Soviet Union used on Earth over 1000 passive reactors, many, many years before. as i said is not a new solution.
all that is new is that they managed to increase alot the power per unit
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:15:42
Maximum efficiency of what?

And again from where?

The word salad is getting irritating.

The reactor runs a thermal power output of 70Mw, so that is a thermal efficiency of ~ 40%. Carnot efficiency running from 800 to 20 degrees would be about 70%.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:18:12
"Maximum efficiency of what?"

of energy convertion!
pls do not ask stupid questions
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:20:41
iii:

What *specifically* do you mean by a passive reactor?

Passive, as I understand the term, relates to having a negative temperature coefficient for reactivity, and small, near zero negative void coefficient for reactivity, such that if the reactor is left to it's own devices, if it starts to exceed operational parameters, it shuts itself off.

This can be achieved all sorts of ways... sure, the higher the temperature gradient between the cold source and the operating temperature of the reactor core, you are going to have higher efficiencies and better burn up, but that just means calibrating the passive safety scheme to operate at the design specification, and to shut down if the specification is exceeded.
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:23:11
iii:

No, of WHAT: The hyperion reactor, reactors in general, passive safety features?

I hate to break it to you, but your English is not so good that what you say makes sense.

The 6% figure does not appear to relate to anything said or discussed here.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:24:14
do not keep reading promotions'
read some physics!
the process used is (idealy) limited at 6% .
that means for every 100W of nuclear power you'll get under 6W electric power
that is a law of physics
cannot be broken by a "wonder reactor"
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:29:28
iii:

The process used in what though. The scheme used by the hyperion reactor? Any scheme involving passive safety features?

Efficiency of converting thermal power from the nuclear reaction to electricity should typically be at least 40 unless you are in some way limited by the technology you can apply.

The physical limit would be the cyclic process used to convert to electricity.

60% would be more like the current efficiency of converting the thermal power generated by nuclear reactions into electricity, using modern steam turbines.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:38:16
yes, but that is not using moving parts and nothing thermal either
only Seebeck Effect
thus the limitation to 6%, FOREVER !

and you citation of mine is incorrect
correct version:
""Efficiency is not determined by passive safety features. "
inefficiency is determined by passive nature of the reactor. i was not talking about any safety. "
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:39:02
*your citation
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:57:03
iii:

Ok. Right. I get where the miscomunication is comming from.

Passive does not mean Radio thermal electric generation.

Passive in this context refers to passive safety features, such as negative reactivity with temperature.

The Hyperion reactors do not use a radio thermal generator, it does not exploit the seebeck process. It uses a steam turbine.

The "no moving parts" claim refers to the reactor itself. Uranium is operates in a hydrogen atmosphere to form uranium hydride, that acts as the fuel and moderator, and depleted uranium in separate trays are used to absorb the hydrogen. The reaction operates up to 800 centigrade, when the hydride breaks down. You can also stop and start the reaction by heating either the moderator tray or the core.

The heat is extracted through the shield by heat pipes (sealed copper pipes with capillaries running through them, usually containing something like ethanol, which convects the heat up the pipe) to the turbine component. There is no cycling coolant, and not mobile control rods. That is what they mean by no moving parts. Outside of the sealed reactor, they have a steam turbine which of course does have moving parts.


Now, with regard to efficiencies of thermo electric effects, there are other thermoelectric processes with higher efficiencies than the seebeck effect.

I think some theoretical schemes, Thermophotovoltaics and thermionic emission, can get anywhere up to 30%. They genuinely have no moving parts.

But yeah, so far, if you want to use a thermoelectric conversion, then you are looking at below 10% efficiency.
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 11:57:57
"Techrockies has an interview with John Deal, the CEO of Hyperion Power Generation. Below are the highlights with some new information. Hyperion Power generation is trying to make a factory mass produced uranium hydride molten core reactor which will generate 70 MWt and 27-30MWe. Hyperion Power Generation plans to sell and build the first 4000 reactors over the first ten year period or less. [2013-2022] They have orders from Romania and Czechs and are now talking to developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas. 4,000 reactors over ten years is an average of 400"

WHAT I SAID HERE? IT'S ALL ABOUT CORRUPTION AND DIVERTED CAPITAL!
man, i was right even not knowing all
i developped a sense for these, lol
i can smell these shitty thingz!

i live in Romania and i can tell you that my country is completely covered with electric supply lines and in no need of those reactors
we have a BIG nuclear power plant and we are close to the top in Europe in Hydro-energetics

IT'S ALL ABOUT CORRUPTION AND DIVERTED CAPITAL!
man, they will steal again plenty from our budget, lol
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 12:00:07
iii:

Doesn't romania nuclear power plants have to be shut down by some deadline under the EU accession treaty?
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 12:03:44
thanks for information
i cannot find that so fast

it means that is a serious deal

though Romania is in no need of such
her it remains a matter of corruption and diverted capital
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 12:06:14
"Doesn't romania nuclear power plants have to be shut down by some deadline under the EU accession treaty?"

no reason for that
is a Canadian technology, good and safe
Bulgarians must close theirs :)
they have problems
in fact our nuclear power plant is about to get more reactors online
Seb
Member
Sun Nov 16 12:13:35
Pardon me then. I remembered some Accession countries were being asked to shut them down because they were similar to the Chernobyl design.

CANDU's right?

It might be if these are being bought they are for use in either remote regions, or by private companies that just want to insulate themselves from any changes in electricity prices. Like aluminium smelting or something.
TalonsWordsOfWisdom
Member
Sun Nov 16 17:15:53
iii whats your native language? I'm having a very hard time understanding your posts :(
iii
Member
Sun Nov 16 22:11:41
Romanian
i don't know english grammar well
but, as it was proven, humans can read this
TalonsWordsOfWisdom
Member
Sun Nov 16 22:18:23
most ;)
Hot Rod
Member
Mon Nov 17 04:47:32

Just thought of another plus to these gadgets.

You would be off of the giant grids and would not be subject to black and brown outs.

Seb
Member
Mon Nov 17 07:01:40
HotRod:

That is only a consequence of the US's shitty grids.

Rather than spreading micro nuclear reactors everywhere (and iii is correct in that this is a quite inefficient way to use nuclear fuel, of which we may have only about a centuries worth), perhaps some long overdue investment into your electricity grid infrastructure would be more appropriate.
patom
Member
Mon Nov 17 07:37:53
Seb, you are correct that the grid needs to be updated and expanded. I would hope that the generating industry has learned some important lessons from the accidents at Chernobyl (?) and Three Mile Island. We should be able to build safer Nuke Plants. The problem as always arrises with permiting and complience with regulations regarding safety, environmental impact, etc.

If however they build enough windturbines, I know they will need a lot of them, the permitting process would be a lot shorter and cheaper, not to mention the much lower cost and ease of construction.
Seb
Member
Mon Nov 17 08:13:36
Modern nuke plants are safe (this design is apparently walk-away safe, as many now are), my concern here is I dislike the concept of fissile material being widely distributed in small facilities that are not constantly manned. Too easy to "forget" about.

Diversity is best, but I think we are. going to need a core base load supply from nuclear. Wind, tidal, hydro, it all comes into the mix.
iii
Member
Mon Nov 17 09:57:58
another problem:
we should not permit new muclear powerplants to be built cause all technologies we have today are still WASTING most of radioactive materials.
it is CRIME to use radioactive materials when only 1% is used in nuclear reactions to produce energy, even lower %
before building more reactors we should wait maybe even 100+ yrs till we'll have more efficient technologies
radioactive materials are even more "non-regenerable" than fosile fuels
Seb
Member
Mon Nov 17 10:02:34
I wouldn't agree with that. We have to make energy somehow, and it is more likely that we will develop better nuclear technologies as we go on than if we ban building power plants.
iii
Member
Mon Nov 17 10:16:48
you must be an american
Seb
Member
Mon Nov 17 10:24:27
No, a Brit.

There is now way we are going to develop better technologies without building reactors now to learn how to make better ones.
iii
Member
Mon Nov 17 10:33:19
don't believe you
you are american for sure
and doing here propaganda
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