On Nov 9, 2008, at 12:50 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Terry Blanton wrote:
Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
£13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry
Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power
20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los
Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic
bomb.
Ed Storms has reservations about this technology, but I think it is
a good idea. Particularly good for remote locations where there are
no hydroelectric or wind resources.
My reservations are not about making and using small reactors but the
design and promise made by the Hyperion Company. The Russians put
small reactors in space and we used small reactors as heat sources in
the Arctic. The problem is with a promise that the reactor requires
no attention and can be scattered over the countryside as local heat
sources. Too much can go wrong and the proposed design requires a lot
more operational experience before it can be relied on to be safe. I
hope by the time this experience has accumulated, energy from CF will
hit the grid.
Ed
Small hydroelectric generators are also good, especially in
underdeveloped third world countries.
I do not think we should worry too much about people stealing these
things, or about the spent uranium fuel piling up. I see this as an
interim technology that will be replaced by cold fusion or something
similar. People 50 to 100 years from now will be better equipped to
dispose of the spent fuel, and although I do not like leaving my
great-grandchildren with an expensive problem, it is better to leave
them spent uranium fuel than a planet overwhelmed by global warming.
- Jed
