Coming soon: Mini N-power plants

23 Nov 2008, 0827 hrs IST,

They’re smaller than a garden shed but can provide electricity to 20,000 homes.
If things go according to plan, then these mini nuclear power plants will be on sale
soon.

Based on technology originally developed by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a power firm is creating mini nuclear fission reactors that will provide electricity and hot water to remote locations, reported Discovery Channel.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexicobased company which said recently that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. “Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a kilowatt hour anywhere in the world,” said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion.

“They will cost approximately $25m [£16m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home.” Specifying that “there is a strong humanitarian bent to these reactors” , Deal said, “This was invented to provide electricity and hot water to remote locations, where people might not have electricity or clean water.”

The reactors will be factory-sealed , contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground, reported The Guardian. Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities.

The firm plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. “We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.”

The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company, reported The Guardian. “They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to buy,” said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania . “We have a six-year waiting list.”

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter , will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7-10 years. Because the reactors are based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory.

An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year, The Guardian reported. “You could never have a Chernobyltype event—there are no moving parts,” said Deal. “You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it’s too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.”

Using propriety technology, Deal says they can transfer over 99% of the 500 degrees produced inside the reactors to the surface of the sealed concrete container . Whoever buys the reactor will pipe water past the those 500-degree thermal conductors, boiling the water to purify it or produce steam that will power nearby generators.

The high surface temperature, along with the fact that the reactors will be installed deep underground and at facilities that already have good security, should also prevent theft, says Deal.

Max Carbon, author of the book, Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim, agrees that the security risk of Hyperion’s reactor is minimal. “This is low-enrichment uranium , which is not useful for making a bomb,” said Carbon. “If terrorists wanted to get radioactive material they could get it elsewhere much easier.”

PACKING A PUNCH

The mini reactors will be factory-sealed , contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground They will cost around $25m each.

For a community with 10,000 households, that comes to $2,500 per home The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7-10 years.

Via:E.T