Toshiba Pushes Safe, Small Nuclear Reactor Design

core plexus writes "This article describes a proposal from a Japanese corporation that wants to thrust the Interior Alaska community of Galena into international limelight by donating a new, unconventional electricity-generating plant that would light and heat the Yukon River village pollution-free for 30 years. There's a catch, of course. It's a nuclear reactor. Not a huge, Three Mile Island-type power plant but a new generation of small nuclear reactor about the size of a big spruce tree. Designers say the technology is safe, simple and cheap enough to replace diesel-fired generators as the primary energy source for villages across rural Alaska."

Comments

Ignorance

[mrtroy]

"The word 'nuclear' makes me nervous," said Randy Virgin of the Alaska Center for the Environment. "But we've long seen the problems with diesel, and I'm pretty excited about the prospect of a clean source of energy," he said. "It sounds very promising, but I'd approach it with extreme skepticism."

There is soooo much less polution from nuclear reactors given the probability of worst case scenarios versus the diesel they are currently using. Why are we still burning fossel fuels!@!#@#!@!#

They arent in a location very suitable for wind/solar either, so nuclear seems like the best non-renewable solution.

Such a backwards society we live in, when technology is available and safe, and we delay in implementation.

Re:Pollution Free?

[ajensen]

I wonder why they some small "village" in Alaska - perhaps this technology isn't as safe as they might like us to think? ;)

There's actually some sound reasoning behind this. By putting such a nuclear reactor in a small village, they will be able to provide power to the entire surrounding area instead of just a fraction. If this was placed in a large city, you would have to somehow partition the power grid into small pieces. Not impossible, but not as easy as simply replacing the diesel generators at this small village.

They may also be trying to market this specifically as a solution for those small, remote sites. Imagine how much diesel fuel would be burned over the course of thirty years -- then realize that a small amount of nuclear fuel could do the same job. Yes, yes, I know that nuclear waste will last much longer than thirty years. The advantage, however, is that nuclear waste is much more manageable and, if taken care of properly, is not as damaging to the environment.

Cheers,

-a

Re:Funny thing about the French

[HeghmoH]

What's the other major accident? Everyone knows about Chernobyl, of course. And everyone talks about TMI, but the fact is that there is not a single death traceable to TMI, and there was basically no release of anything harmful.

The actual proportion in France is 75% of electric power generation from nuclear. Another 15% is other "clean" power, such as hydro. The remaining 10% is evil dirty "burning stuff" electricity. I live pretty close to about five reactors here, and I feel pretty safe. It's preferable to having a bunch of coal plants dumping crap (including a fair amount of uranium!) into the air.

Nuclear really is the way to go. The only major accident, Chernobyl, was only possible due to the collusion of a horribly unsafe plant design, and moronic operators who decided to run an experiment (i.e. try something out that was way beyond the design specs) and turn off all of the safety systems while they were doing it. So, surprise surprise, the thing made a big KABOOM.

If coal plants had to live under the same radiation emission guidelines as nuclear power, they would never be able to operate. So I agree completely, get rid of nuclear phobias (in other countries, there doesn't seem to be a lot of it here!) and get rid of heavy pollution in electrical generation.