US Plans "Disposable" Nuclear Batteries

holy_calamity writes "A US government program is in the works to design small nuclear reactors for use by developing countries. The work continues despite fears about security and nuclear proliferation. Plans include having reactors supplied with fuel by the US and other trusted nations, or to build reactors with their whole lifetime of fuel packaged securely inside — like a giant non-user replaceable radioactive battery.' '"

Comments

Proliferation?

[TFer_Atvar]

Why worry about proliferation? They're not going to be sending these things to Iran -- if they're ever built -- and any financially and technologically stable nation can already build nuclear weapons. There's over 100 research reactors operating around the world, hundreds more medical reactors, and all the power-generating ones as well. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Why reinvent the wheel?

[irregular_hero]

Toshiba has already developed this as a viable technology and is in the process of deploying something like this in Alaska as part of an NSF-funded replacement of a diesel-fired powerplant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S

And Toshiba's not the only game in town as far as micro-reactors go. Why would the government spend a boatload to develop something that already exists commercially? Why not just allow countries to select the best commercial design that fits them and ease the regulatory barriers to permit easier US fueling of self-contained sub-50 megawatt reactors? Seems like the AEC is just caught flatfooted in response to new technology, that's all -- no need to develop anything, just rework the regulations to take into account new technologies.

Re:Why reinvent the wheel?

[WindBourne]

First, this is in the range of 250 MW to 500 MW. Second, Toshiba has done nothing with theirs. Finally, the idea of these is to make it difficult to have a country use these for bomb making. Every country has no choice BUT to persue nuclear power plants. The reason is that EU and much of the west is about to slap a carbon tax on (there is no way around this; it is the only way to protect their industry AND drop their own carbon). But we can not have more NKs, Pakistans etc. running around. As it is, American republicans sold our nuke secrets to Turkey and Pakistan and that is why we have issues from the middle east in the first place.

This is bad

[chord.wav]

Have you noticed that it is the US that is planning the "solution" to a foreign problem? Did anyone ask for help in the first place? Or they are mandating it?

What if, say, Peru plans a solution to US health care problem and decides unilaterally to deploy that solution to the US?

Re:FFS

[nbert]

Or we could just focus on improving the efficiency of solar and wind power generation.

At the current growth rate of the technologies you mentioned it simply isn't going to make a significant difference. Of course there is the possibility that improvements in efficiency will make up for it (by some miracle invention), but that's like betting on the slowest horse in a race because it offers the highest win - wouldn't do it with anything else but with some spare change I keep for entertainment.

The power consumption of devices is really important to me. For idealistic reasons I buy devices featuring high energy efficiency. Plus there is an economic dimension: In my country one kWh costs around $0.31 and one gallon is aroung $7.5. I must admit that the current dollar/euro ratio inflates these prices, but even if the exchange ratio was 1.30 the numbers would still look rather high. But even when I give preference to low-power devices I have no doubt that anything saved by me (and the western world in general) will be compensated by higher demand in emerging markets.

Btw: A high share of the prices mentioned above go into subvention of biofuel, wind- and solar-power. But even with high subventions the market share of regenerative energies is around 5% over here. In my very greenish opinion the best way to archive sustainability is the following: Tax energy consumption, but use the money coming from it for something else than subvention. This will make sure that demand is reduced on the customer side. On the production side legislation should regulate: Install a emission trading system like in Europe (but better) and sign international treaties like the Kyoto protocol. Producers could still use coal plants, but the economic benefit would strongly favor other sources of energy. I strongly believe that any other system will result in billions spend in nonsense.