Toshiba Builds Ultra-Small Nuclear Reactor

DeusExCalamus writes "Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs."

Comments

Re:Incredible.

[Firethorn]

20 feet high, 6 feet in diameter.

Oh, and this is old. I believe it was around 3 years ago that I first heard of this. They were talking about installing one in a remote village up in Alaska that gets all it's power from diesel because it'd be too expensive to connect it to the grid it's so far away.

Then the greenies* heard about it and killed it. The villagers were pretty much all for it.

*Can't really call them NIMBY, unless they count the entire planet their backyard in this case.

Cannot Find

[russ1337]

I heard about this yesterday, and searched the Toshiba's main website for a press release or anything. I found nothing beyond the article. If Toshiba are really doing this, i thought it would at least be a headliner on their website.

Anyone?? I'm wondering if this is even real.

my search here (you may have to filter for medical results)

Re:Lifetime cost

[slashqwerty]

40 years x 365 days x 24 hours x 200kW x $0.05 = $3.5bn

I think you're off by a factor of 1000. I get $3.5 million. That's far more practical. You're numbers come out to $50/kWh.

Re:Fuel

[AtomicJake]

TFA says it'll use lithium-6

But Lithium-6 is stable, i.e. not radioactive. It can be used to produce Tritium by neutron activation, which in turn is used in thermonuclear weapons. But for Neutron activation you need another radioactive source. So, what's this source? Or is Toshiba using a totally different process?

I doubt that these are properties of an export hit ...

small reactors have been built before

[savuporo]

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf82.html

So the USSR, US and french have designed and built small spaceworthy reactors before. Some of these things have flown on actual space missions, particularly the russian Topaz-I system, weighing only 320kg.

They even built and tested nuclear powered aircraft both in US and USSR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_aircraft

Wonder why it never went anywhere ?

Re:small reactors have been built before

[caffiend666]

Because one of the test teams died miserable deaths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 . They found one engineer pinned to the roof several days later.... "The third man was not discovered for several days because he was pinned to the ceiling above the reactor by a control rod. On 9 January, in relays of two at a time, a team of eight men, allowed no more than 65 seconds exposure each, used a net and crane arrangement to recover his body.

The bodies of all three were buried in lead-lined caskets sealed with concrete and placed in metal vaults with a concrete cover. All had major physical injuries, including severed limbs and fragments of the fuel assembly in their wounds. Richard Leroy McKinley is buried in section 31 of Arlington National Cemetery."

The radiation levels were too high for the rescue teams to get near the reactor and figure out what happened. After they recovered one body, they use the radation levels of his body and the rare isotopes they found on his possessions (Gold 198 anyone?) to prove the reactor had gone super critical.

Much nuclear space research was put on hold after the effects of the Starfish Prime experiment were understood.

Re:Fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

6Li is a neutron absorber. Its advantage is that it produces essentially no gamma radiation, as the dominant channel is 6Li(n,T). Tritium is produced, but in a reactor like this it will presumably be all inside the seals. The alternative shielding material, 10B, produces gammas as well, requiring lead shielding.

The lithium is a regulator and shielding component of the reactor, not a fuel. It'll be fuelled by moderately enriched uranium, much like a Slowpoke.

Interesting fact: 40% of electricity generated in Canada is lost to transmission lines and conversions. One of the big gains from tech like this would be the reduction in transmission losses.

More info

[Xelios]

After crawling the web a bit I found a few more interesting links about Toshiba's "Micro-Nuke" technology. First an article from 2005 about a similar Toshiba reactor running on liquid Sodium that was slated to be installed in a remote Alaskan village some time before 2010. This doesn't appear to be the same reactor as mentioned here on /.

A blog entry with more information and links about this and other small reactors.

It seems to be fairly safe, though I can't imagine the red tape they'll have to get through in order to begin installing them, especially in North America. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US has about a 60 month process to certify a reactor from the time the application is filed, Toshiba probably has a head start on this application from 2005 with its "4S" mini-reactor, but this new Lithium version will probably need its own application process. They plan to build these things at least 30m underground, encased in steel and concrete walls that probably put most bank vaults to shame, so I don't think tampering will be a major issue.

Article author shouldn't embellish

[Quintin Stone]

Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction.

Anyone who knows anything about nuclear reactors knows that control rods certainly do not initiate reactions. They regulate or halt it by absorbing the neutrons that cause it. Maybe the author at "Next energy news" should become a bit more familiar with his/her subject before writing about it.

Re:Wikipedia has more info about it

[SixFactor]

Spy,

To address your points:

"...uranium is kept in small pebbles made of graphite, which is a neutron reflector material."

Technically, graphite is a neutron moderator, to allow the neutrons to slow down and interact with other nuclei in the fuel matrix. The Chicago Pile 1 used the graphite bricks as the moderator matrix. The downside of graphite is that if a graphite fire starts, it's very difficult to put out. So the pebble bed isn't quite the ideal, IMHO.

"Both reactor designs have a "negative temperature coefficient of reactivity" simply means that an increase in core temperature will cause a decrease in core power. "

This is but one part of current regulatory requirements. The General Design Criteria govern the design of nuclear plants in general, and cores in particular. The downside of having too strong of a negative temperature coefficient is that in an overcooling scenario, you get the opposite effect. This is why Main Steam Line Breaks are considered in the core design.

"More interesting facts: pebble-bed reactors use helium as coolant instead of water..."

Personally, I've always liked the gas-cooled (especially He) reactors. BTW, this has been done before at Fort St. Vrain in Colorado. Unfortunately, because it was a first of a kind (here in the US, anyway), it was plagued by more mundane issues, like seal leakage, etc. Nothing catastrophic, but a pain in the ass operationally.

Sodium on the other had was intended to minimize the impact of metal corrosion. Think about it: with a liquid metal coolant, the fuel, piping, etc. would maintain integrity pretty well. The bad thing is that yes, Na is a dangerous thing to deal with - especially on a large scale. The Experimental Breeder Reactor in Idaho was one such, I think. This is where a lot of the operational problems were discovered.

We learn by doing.

Hope this helps.

Re:A slogan

[dgatwood]

Even when they do apply, that's at least partially wrong. Hydro power is about as un-green as you can get. It does more environmental damage than coal.

Traditional hydro power blocks rivers, which causes problems for fish migration. Hydro power creates pools of water where plant matter dies, releasing large amounts of methane, which contributes directly to global warning. And so on. Hydro power is really relatively nasty stuff. It's fine if you already have a dam for flood control reasons and are just taking advantage of the water flow, but otherwise, it's generally a bad idea.

Solar power is also nasty, at least if you're talking about photovoltaic cells (the only type of solar power practical for anyone but large power companies). The chemicals used to produce the cells are really horrible for the environment. There are cleaner cell chemistries on the horizon, but AFAIK, nothing in mass production yet. The giant solar tower designs don't have that problem, though they are impractical except for large installations and require substantial energy storage to provide power at night. Depending on the energy storage mechanism used, that can be pretty nasty environmentally as well. If they do use a clean storage mechanism, though, such as storing heated water underground, it is relatively green. Notice, though, that with so many "ifs", a large chunk of solar power isn't green at all.

Wind power, bird risks notwithstanding, is relatively green.

Nuclear power is also relatively green. Its only emission is water vapor, which quickly settles out of the atmosphere. The nuclear material, while a waste product, was radioactive on the way in, too. You aren't really producing nuclear waste. You are simply taking advantage of a natural process that would occur inside the ground and harnessing it for power by bringing it up out of the ground. By any sane standard, it is every bit as green as wind power.

Another one you didn't mention is tidal power. This is pretty different from traditional hydro power, and is generally considered to be fairly environmentally sound, AFAIK. It is also limited to coastal regions, which makes it pretty much useless in large percentages of the world, but it's a start. :-)