JP
Late last year word first got around about the portable nuclear reactors Hyperion Power was planning on developing. But now in late 2008, the company is still committed to the idea and have even set a shipping date of June 2013. That’s pretty ambitious!
Not much is known about the planned portables, but concerns about backyard nuclear bomb making should be put to rest according to the company. They note that their fuel is uranium hydride, UH3, which is low-enriched and 10% -235. Fuel used in bombs is 98% enriched. Somehow, this doesn’t make me feel that much better about it.
Waste would obviously be a big concern here, especially when you look to the big nuclear power plants which are currently housing their waste in Yucca mountain. But again, Hyperion Power ensures waste won’t be a problem as it will only be “about the size of a football,” and that’s after “powering 20,000 homes for 8-10 years.” They have a recycling plan, apparently but can’t reveal it due to “security reasons.” Hmm, still not on board with this one. What do you all think?
[via Gizmodo]
4 Responses to “Hyperion Power’s portable nuclear reactors could ship by 2013”
Rod Adams September 26, 2008
Brenda:
Though there are still some details lacking, for logical reasons, Hyperion seems to be on a path with amazing potential. They are building on some excellent science and engineering done by one of the premier centers of atomic knowledge in the country. More information is available about the design than you imply. I found some very interesting documents using “Otis Peterson uranium hydride” as a Google search term. One that I need to find via a library is
Los Alamos Report No. LA-UR-04-1087 Author Peterson, O. G. Otis G.
Title ComStar Compact Self regulating Transportable Reactor CONCEPT
This document is listed on a publication list, but is not freely available because of library policies and copyright restrictions.
I have spoken with John (Grizz) Deal on The Atomic Show Podcast; he convinced me that he knows what he is doing in leading a company full of talented atomic geeks with a great idea and some solid financial backing.
Rod Adams
-2Editor, Atomic Insights
Host, The Atomic Show Podcast
Eileen McCabe September 26, 2008
Nuclear Power Plants are NOT storing their waste at Yucca Mountain. The Yucca Mountain Repository has not been built and has not been licensed. The DOE’s latest estimate is 2020 opening it, best (or worse) case scenario.
According to the CEO of this company, the units are still in the R&D phase, so this is hype. They have not developed a way of refueling them, and they will still have to dispose of the used fuel. Nuclear Power is given huge subsidies, liability caps and loan guarantees, including in the R&D phase. The government just handed out huge grants to a number of universities to halp train “the next generation of nuclear engineers.” What other energy production method gets this kind of largesse? So yes, they have solid financial backing – from the taxpayers.
-2KoKo September 27, 2008
The reason you don’t feel better about the fact that their fuel have very low levels of U-235 and bombs use fuel with very high levels, is that you don’t understand how difficult it is to create uranium with high levels of U-235, i.e., “highly enriched” uranium.
The two major forms of uranium, U-235 and U-238, are nearly identical. The two forms react to chemicals the same way. They melt at the same temperature. They are in fact nearly impossible to separate.
The only difference is that molecules with U-238 are very, very slightly heavier than those with U-235. So to concentrate the U-235, you react the uranium with fluorine to make a gas (yes, a gas), then spin it in a centrifuge for about 2 years to bring the lighter stuff to the top, skim it off, then repeat.
You repeat many dozens of times, with an array of thousands of centrifuges. Each centrifuge is an ultra-high precision instrument costing many, many thousands of dollars.
Difficult, expensive, time-consuming.
+2Forky Lee September 30, 2008
The website says they are commercializing an invention out of Los Alamos National Labs’ Tech Transfer program with private investor money. That means there are no taxpayer dollars involved other than the original research done at the labs. Lots of people don’t know this, but the US Congress has mandated that US funded technology must be made available to the commercial sector so taxpayer funded science can be put to use in the world at large.
As to which other energy production receives government “largesse”, the answer is all of them. Solar and Wind cannot compete without tax credits. That’s why those industries are screaming that Congress is dragging their feet on renewing tax credits for renewables. And haven’t you read about the current national brouhaha about Big Oil losing their subsidies? Its a major plank of Obama’s platform! Why do you think we have had the cheapest gas on the planet for decades? Government subsidies that make it cheaper to produce.
I hate it that the so-called “Green Community” is exactly as honest about the science of nuclear energy as the Bush administration has been about stem cells, EPA reports and global warming.
Nuclear energy is the ONLY way to power the modern world without GHGs.
Neutral