your own personal nuclear reactor!

[mrhnau]

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

Toshiba has apparently built a small nuclear reactor, currently marketed towards small, remote communities. Quite interesting! I've always like the notion of being "off the grid", but never really thought of using nuclear energy for that.

as long as its safe (non-volatile) and secure, I don't have any problems with it, but I feel a lot of people will...

thoughts? opinions? Would you by one for your own community or for yourself if you were fabulously wealthy?

 

[elder999]

Marketing the thing in this country might prove to be difficult, especially given the Japanese nuclear power operating record, which has a had a number of pretty bad incidents, including several prolonged, uncontrolled criticalities, at least two of which occured during refueling!

That said, I'd probably buy one, if Toshiba contracted to cart it off in 40 yrs....:duh:

 

[Big Don]

If we can just mount one in a Delorean and get that baby up to 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious ****!

 

[grydth]

I think there's a wacky little guy in Iran who'd definitely be interested....

Toshiba made my DVD player, let's just stick with that for a few years, okay?

 

[Xue Sheng]

I have no problem with it what-so-ever... just as long as Jimmy Ray Billy Bob that lives WAAAAAAY back in the woods, that wants to be an independent nation with his militia, is a Nuclear Physicist

 

[elder999]

I have no problem with it what-so-ever... just as long as Jimmy Ray Billy Bob that lives WAAAAAAY back in the woods, that wants to be an independent nation with his militia, is a Nuclear Physicist

That'd kinda be me, wouldn't it?

 

[tellner]

You'd have to run a reactor like that beyond design parameters for a terribly long time to get any significant quantities of interesting material. A big part of the appeal is that it's an incredibly inefficient way of making bomb components.

I believe the these reactors, like the TRIGA I used to work on and the new "pebble bed" designs are not physically capable of what they poetically call a "criticality excursion". It's not like Chernobyl, TMI or N Reactor where human stupidity could cause problems. Well, I'm sure about the TRIGA. The pebble bed design is the subject of some serious debate which I am no longer qualified to comment on. It's been close to twenty years since I had the physics.

 

[Xue Sheng]

That'd kinda be me, wouldn't it?

You have a malitia? :uhyeah:

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I think I will pass for now and let some other's test it out. I would hate to wake up at night wondering why my pajama's were glowing!

 

[Phoenix44]

I like my solar panels, thanks.

 

[elder999]

You have a malitia? :uhyeah:

'round these parts we call 'em a posse..:lol:

 

[cdunn]

You'd have to run a reactor like that beyond design parameters for a terribly long time to get any significant quantities of interesting material. A big part of the appeal is that it's an incredibly inefficient way of making bomb components.

I believe the these reactors, like the TRIGA I used to work on and the new "pebble bed" designs are not physically capable of what they poetically call a "criticality excursion". It's not like Chernobyl, TMI or N Reactor where human stupidity could cause problems. Well, I'm sure about the TRIGA. The pebble bed design is the subject of some serious debate which I am no longer qualified to comment on. It's been close to twenty years since I had the physics.

While I can't say anything about the TRIGA, I will also note that the pellet bed makes it very, very difficult to extract anything interesting from the SiC or carbon pellets. Further, the helium coolant is effectively impossible to contaminate with radiation.

The fuel is designed to prevent a 'criticality excursion', supposedly, by distribution of the fuel into many small packets enveloped in moderators. In theory, you can't get enough fuel into one place to have an uncontrolled reation, and if all systems fail, you just rise to a given temperature and stay there. Double bonus, there aren't as many moving parts and wreckable complexities. In theory, you can also run a wide variety of nuclear crap, not just enriched uranium.

Downside is, they make a lot of nuclear waste. A lot of it. And no one's ever deliberately tried to get a pellet bed to go supercritical, so we don't really know the safety margin.

 

[tellner]

Downside is, they make a lot of nuclear waste. A lot of it.

Ick. That is a problem. "Reduce. Reuse. Recycle." In a more efficient world that's what reprocessing plants and breeder reactors would be for.

And no one's ever deliberately tried to get a pellet bed to go supercritical, so we don't really know the safety margin.

Nobody's doing anything useful with East St. Louis or most of Detroit. A meltdown might do a few million in improvements

 

[Xue Sheng]

'round these parts we call 'em a posse..:lol:

:rofl: