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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."
Have a fallout, closer to home. Toshiba Micro Nuclear.
Someone should have told these students that they could get one of these and not have to peddle.
liqbase
How did they manage to shrink a nuclear reactor to only two dimensions?
The claimed cost of power is $0.05/kwh.
A gallon of gasoline has something around 35kwh. 35kwh from this thing would cost you $1.75. If you had a fleet of electric vehicles, you could continually charge batteries off this thing and swap them out.
A 200kw reactor would produce the equivalent of almost 140 gallons of gasoline per day. Effectively this is more energy, if your vehicles operate in the city, because you don't expend energy idling the engine. You could operate a fleet of electric cabs, locking in the equivalent of a $1.75/gallon energy cost for the next forty years.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Gee, I guess I'll be selling all my extra power to the grid.
I love it when someone from Arizona tells me that solar power is going to solve all my power problems here in northern New Hampshire.
I got one of these and, honestly, it only puts out about 180 kilowatts out of the box. I managed to overclock it to 250 kilowatts, however. I just finished the case mod. I'm using plexiglass so you can see what's going on inside. It also weighs a lot less without all the lead, which was pretty unattractive. But now Toshiba is saying I voided my warranty and won't give me tech support. I just want to find out why my dog started glowing in the dark...
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.
10 years ago, this article would have abounded with threads on how cool this is, and "I wonder if you could make a Beowulf cluster of those."
Now, it's all, nuclear is bad, nuclear is evil because "The terrorists might get it".
Listen to yourselves. You've eaten the terrorist propaganda the government has been feeding you, AND YOU LOVE IT.
"We can't do this because it might help the terrorists."
"Yeah, that's cool, but what about the terrorists?"
"If it weren't for terrorists, this would be awesome."
George Bush loves you guys, he's got you on his side and you don't even realize it.
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.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Wonderful deal, isn't it?
Iran only has to build expensive reactors, and buy the fuel from the US (or whoever provides it) which will of course be sold at a profit (so it's not exactly a huge concession on the provider's part)
That'd work right until the provider decides it doesn't like something going on and says "No more fuel for you!".
Then what happens is that Iran gets rolling blackouts, and gets stuck with lots of expensive hardware they can't use, because if they had enough power without the reactors they wouldn't be building them in the first place.
Yes, I don't understand why anybody wouldn't sign up for a great deal like that.
I can just imagine the operating manaul:
"Thank you to use Nuclear-Friend. The main characteristic in machine of control rod moves in with slim middle, can nimble neutron dependable work send, of via sea warmness thusly turbine twist out machine-wind.
ALERTNESS, magnet-imprison with ionisation threatening badass. Fleeting bioluminescence in bird appendage observation, conjunction Cherenkov neon likeness, linking chain of no command (barking!) to blinking indications. Personages of vicinity ascending fucking with sparks! Ability detriment remove with "fast-neutron-sheilding-blanket" (slowly neutrons with alacrity) to mammalian sex babylove machine faulty. As packing box inside includes dosimeter for life-spirit guard dog is. Un-normal witness with e=mc2 of cloudy fungus c.10km bigness, warranty glue not connected."
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.
Science never settles, never rests.