Budding Bonsai Nuclear Plants

[GuyJean]

Sort of NJR, but seems like Japan's ability to miniaturize everything would put them at an advantage with this technology..

Mini Nuclear Plants to Power 20,000 Homes



http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

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.

The miniature 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.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week 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 watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'

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. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said.

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

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 to 10 years. Because the reactor is 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.

'You could never have a Chernobyl-type 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.'

Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.

GJ

[alicia454]

Many years ago in grad school, I did quite a bit of work on the Slowpoke-2 reactor at the University of Toronto. It was considered to be one of the safest reactor designs, since it had a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. This means that the hotter the core got, the nuclear reactivity rate drops off due to thermal expansion, to the point that everything levels off to a safe maximum, even when all of its control rods are fully removed. In other words, unlike all of the other types of nuclear reactor designs, the slowpoke is passive safe and will not go prompt critical and will not melt-down.

It was hope that the Slowpoke, and especially the Slowpoke-3, would be deployed all over remote northern Canadian towns to provide safe and inexpensive power, especially since Canada mines more than a quarter of all Uranium, more than any other country. Unfortunately concerns about terrorists breaking into isolated and not well protected Slowpoke reactors and stealing nuclear materials basically killed the idea.

It sounds like these new miniature reactors will also a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity, since they also claim to be passively safe.

'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.'

However, the terrorist concerns are quite real. The maximum core temperate is these reactors are typically anywhere from 90-400 degrees Celsius, and could be picked up with a home made variation of lead lined oven mits.

Anyone with a degree in nuclear physics and with some money would know how to remove the fuel and waste from the core and either make a dirty bomb with it, or reassemble it in a home-made reactor core that has a positive temperature coefficient of reactivity that would go prompt critical. It's even easier if the terrorist doesn't care about their own health and is able to forego most of the safety protection when doing so.

Most likely the fuel rods in these miniature reactors contain metal fuel considering of Uranium that has already been enriched to at least 10% 235, as oppose to the 0.7% that exists in nature, mixed together with some light metal such as Aluminum or Zirconium, which can be easily melted away by a terrorist.

If Japan or any other country is stupid enough to consider deploying a large number of these miniature reactors, then they will need to spend a fortune in protecting them with proper fortification and numerous round the clock armed guards. Personally I think it is best to have a few large scale reactor facilities which can be properly protected, and are able to properly handle nuclear waste and any other problems such as earthquakes, flooding, etc.

[Charles]

If Japan or any other country is stupid enough to consider deploying a large number of these miniature reactors, then they will need to spend a fortune in protecting them with proper fortification and numerous round the clock armed guards. Personally I think it is best to have a few large scale reactor facilities which can be properly protected, and are able to properly handle nuclear waste and any other problems such as earthquakes, flooding, etc.

I don't see the problem here. They only need to be replaced every 7 to 10 years and apparently need no ongoing maintenance. So bury them and cover them in tons of concrete. What are terrorists going to do, tunnel in from underneath and suck out the uranium with a straw?

[wuchan]

I guess they didn't teach you that the USSR already had nuclear powered generators. When the USSR broke up they just left a bunch of these things literally lying around asia. Nothing has happened, and these are not buried in two metric tons of concrete. This technology has been around since the 1970s, LosAlamos would not release it if they were worried about "terrorists" digging them up and using the nuclear material for bombs. In fact, the slowpoke is based on LosAlamos research.

[Charles]

I guess they didn't teach you that the USSR already had nuclear powered generators. When the USSR broke up they just left a bunch of these things literally lying around asia. Nothing has happened, and these are not buried in two metric tons of concrete. This technology has been around since the 1970s, LosAlamos would not release it if they were worried about "terrorists" digging them up and using the nuclear material for bombs. In fact, the slowpoke is based on LosAlamos research.

Yeah, I recall reading stories about these (edit: Russian) RTG devices. Some were set up as power sources for telemetry devices in remote areas. When they went out of service, nobody retrieved them, nobody could find them since they stopped transmitting. Then some hunter discovers the inactive device, it is mysteriously warm, and may provide a little warmth (and radiation exposure) during a cold hunting excursion, or perhaps they are curious and crack it open, spilling cesium and other isotopes into the environment.
But those are artifacts of another era, when casual use of RTGs was not considered a problem. Nobody thought about what would happen decades later when they were old and rusty. Hell, I even heard that Russia disposed of dozens of decommissioned nuclear subs by scuttling them in the North Sea, now their neighbors are measuring radioactivity leaking into the ocean and want to recover the subs from the ocean floor and dispose of them properly.

[alicia454]

Sorry but the enriched Uranium with 10% or more 235 in these miniature reactors is very dangerous and could easily be allowed to go prompt critical and trigger a melt-down using only light (regular) water and a thin Beryllium reflector. A nuclear melt-down is no where nearly as bad as a nuclear explosion, but it can still release a lot of radioactive material and contaminate a large area. Not to mention the huge panic it would cause.

The fact that we have been lucky in the past by not having any terrorists related thefts occurring in the former Soviet Union does not mean that it won't happen here in Japan or elsewhere. It's a lot easy to build a home made reactor core with enriched Uranium that will melt-down, then it is to make Sarin gas.

The world is full of too many religious nut-cases, some of which are well educated, to take the chance. There is no point added to the risk by making more of these.

Whenever any terrorist event occurs, even when there are only a few victims, governments use it to justify taking away more and more rights and liberties from the entire public. So it is better to avoid taking risks with nuclear material, then deal with the aftermath that make everyone suffer.

[Iraira]

Sorry but the enriched Uranium with 10% or more 235 in these miniature reactors is very dangerous and could easily be allowed to go prompt critical and trigger a melt-down using only light (regular) water and a thin Beryllium reflector. A nuclear melt-down is no where nearly as bad as a nuclear explosion, but it can still release a lot of radioactive material and contaminate a large area. Not to mention the huge panic it would cause.

The fact that we have been lucky in the past by not having any terrorists related thefts occurring in the former Soviet Union does not mean that it won't happen here in Japan or elsewhere. It's a lot easy to build a home made reactor core with enriched Uranium that will melt-down, then it is to make Sarin gas.

The world is full of too many religious nut-cases, some of which are well educated, to take the chance. There is no point added to the risk by making more of these.

Whenever any terrorist event occurs, even when there are only a few victims, governments use it to justify taking away more and more rights and liberties from the entire public. So it is better to avoid taking risks with nuclear material, then deal with the aftermath that make everyone suffer.

It's Monday morning, so I want to play Devil's Advocate. Maybe mankind has too many rights afforded to it, and given that we can't seem to get along with each other (not you and me personally), maybe a drastic curtailment of rights is necessary in order to ultimately protect us from each other (again, probably not you and me personally).

[Zeth3D]

Whenever any terrorist event occurs, even when there are only a few victims, governments use it to justify taking away more and more rights and liberties from the entire public. So it is better to avoid taking risks with nuclear material, then deal with the aftermath that make everyone suffer.

I get the vague feeling that all this nuclear stuff is your area of expertise, but quite frankly I find your fears slightly over the top.

Number 1, it'd be really hard to steal any of these materials, not just because they are incased in a shit ton of concrete, but because people are hooked up to them, and if anything happens, everyone would instantaneously know.

Number 2, your basis for arguing against this is like saying we should be against gasoline, because a bank robber can have easy access to it to fuel his get-a-way vehicle. Obviously we are not against gasoline for reasons like these, because the cost benefit ratio greatly out weighs the risk. Just as I would think these mini-reactors would have a very high cost benefit ratio, to whatever risk your thinking up.

I'd think up a more substantial arguement, but its late, and my thought process has wavered...

[Buraku]

One thing I've wondered about the waste is, in Japan they still bury it deep in the bed rock? Or dig down and surround the nuclear waste in concrete? but basically the entire country sits on a fault line and has potential to be geologically active. So how is this burying method a safe way of disposing?
what's to say a few generations into the future won't be inhaling or eating this stuff after the next big quake in 2151 or whatever?

[Buraku]

Anymore news on the fire at Onagawa's nuke power plant or have the kisha press club kept a lid on it?