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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.' '"
. . . don't stick the terminals to your tongue to see if there's still a charge.
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.
The work continues despite fears about security and nuclear proliferation.
Fer crying out loud. It's bad enough that we're running out of fossil fuels, but between the hardcore environmentalists and paranoid first world countries, we're not making much traction on the nuclear issue, which is a shame. Talk up your fave green project all you want, but all of us need to get on the nuclear power plant bandwagon sooner rather than later. cheap fusion's not going to be here for a while.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Don't forget powering desalinization plants.
If you can build desalinization plants around the nuclear device, it would be easier to secure, and immediately noticed if someone started tampering with it. i.e. the loss of power.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In many countries their is a severe need for cheap plentiful energy to do things that we take for granted like water purification. It's a given that before a country starts receiving these reactors that they will have to ratchet up a lot of the infra-structures to distribute the energy and maintain security. I can't help but see this has the potential to help everyone involved.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The Energizer Nuclear battery, it just keeps glowing, and glowing, and glowing....
I apologize profusely.
Monstar L
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.
The Candu reactor is a good export for Canada. AND it can use depleted uranium and other non-weapon-grade fuel.
What do you think nuclear powered ships use for cooling? Seawater.
You are just misinformed. USA foreign aid as a percentage of the GDI is the lowest of just about any developed country:
http://markc1.typepad.com/relentlesslyoptimistic/images/foreign_aid_chart1.GIF
Most of that aid goes to (semi)developed countries like Colombia, Israel and Egypt for political reasons, or to Iraq and Afganistan (which we fucked up in the first place), instead of to the poorest countries in the world:
http://static.flickr.com/51/189662626_257b15004f_o.jpg
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I think TFA misses the point entirely: the main reason for the work is to address security and nuclear proliferation fears. Packaging reactors that are not particularly useful in an arms program with a complete lifetime of fuel and making them available to developing countries is intended as a minimize both the reality and the appearance of a legitimate need for developing countries to have their own civilian (or merely "civilian") nuclear programs, which could more easily be converted to (or covers for) military programs.
Clearly, they aren't proliferation proof, but traditional reactors, especially built and developed locally (even if with outside assistance) are even less proliferation-proof, and those are spreading in the absence of any effort to provide an alternative. This is an attempt to lessen the both the actual need and the political viability of the claim of a need for those kind of independent programs.
The alternative to this program is not that the developing world gets no nuclear material and no reactors.
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?
Plans include having reactors supplied with fuel by the US and other trusted nations
Trusted by who?
1. In today's economy, energy availability is one of the keys to economic growth and a reasonable standard of living, especially for developing nations.
2. The general consensus is that carbon fuels are harming the environment.
3. "Alternative" energy sources such as solar and wind are much more expensive per unit of energy than carbon, and developing nations have little interest in them.
Therefore, AFAIK, the only feasible source of energy that can lift people to western standards of living without burning huge amounts of fossil fuels is nuclear. Even so, developing nations have no interest in nuclear (except Iran and DRK) because it is still more expensive than coal. To spread nuclear power will require incentives and R&D taylored to small nations.
Nuclear power is by far the safest source of energy that can be deployed anywhere in the world (sorry hydro and thermo), and I think a program such as this one could be one of the greatest developments for the world's poor. Even the US could use 100 new nuclear plants today to achieve its environmental goals.
The US Government is not the USA.
As a percentage of our GDP, the US is lowest. The US is also the highest donor of foreign aid when you look at the total money given away.
It's much like the tax argument. Many people think that the rich should pay more taxes to be fair, but the flip side of the argument is that the wealthy already pay much more in taxes than anybody else.
The only way the US gives more money away is if we increase taxes - which 90% of us think we pay too much already. I'm not going to pay yet another tax so that the people of Zimbabwe can have better toilets. If YOU want to give them money, feel free, but don't assume that the rest of us want to do the same.
Developed countries get more money because they spend more money on lobbying. Poor countries can lobby the US government just the same for less money if they organized themselves properly, but they don't. Rarely do US lawmakers pick up causes on their own and start funding them - it's more often the case that somebody is knocking on their door and providing a good argument for the fact that they deserve funding.
If you look closely at the foreign aid the US gives, I would guess that a solid 75% of it is waste. If you really want to make a difference, why not take a close look at the existing aid programs and figure out ways to better manage the money and submit your ideas to those in a position to do something about it. Yeah, it's a long arduous process and it's a lot easier to just complain that it's not done right, but if you put a little elbow grease into anything you end up with a sense of personal satisfaction that outweighs any momentary happiness that complaining gives you.
The rest of you - we can't go on like this. Other countries are "coming on line" soon and will need their share of oil, too. There's just not enough to go around; not in the long term. All the wishful thinking in the world isn't going to change this - we need to find another energy source, go back to the stone age, or fight World War Three to secure what's left of a disappearing resource.
Those who think that hydrogen or ethanol are the solution - go to the back of the bus. There's no free hydrogen on this planet and to obtain free hydrogen you need to add energy. Current methods for obtaining hydrogen: electrolyse water (big energy) or catalytically extract it from natural gas (limited supply). There's no free energy here, hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy supply.
The ethanol solution is also based on mostly fantasy. Sure, you can ferment carbohydrates at virtually no cost other than the carbohydrate source. But distilling it to obtain the ethanol is a high energy operation. Can ethanol be distilled using less energy than can be obtained by burning it? Maybe someday, but using today's technology it's a losing proposition. And don't forget that the carbohydrate source is the same one that we call "food". Our government's current push for ethanol is the reason that Mexican farmers are plowing under their agave crops and planting corn instead. When you notice that the price of your tequila has skyrocketed, thank your government.
When looking for an energy source, forget just looking at things you can burn to release energy. Look at things that can be found naturally in a state where they can be burned to release energy; these may be useful energy sources. That eliminates hydrogen and ethanol, both of those require energy input to manufacture.
Until something else is discovered, other than oil the only primary source of energy we know of is nuclear power. You can demonstrate against it - and it is indeed an imperfect source of power; disposal of the "exhaust" is a very difficult problem. But it's the only thing that we've got to work with in the long term.
Wind and water may provide some energy, but they won't be enough. If you don't want nuclear energy, suggest something else that will provide a positive energy result.
Is there any reason why people can't buy solar panels and put them on their roofs? Are they too expensive? Ugly? Do they not provide enough power for the average home?
1. Nope
2. Very much so
3. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
4. Sure, you just need a lot of them, not to mention a storage bank if you want power when the sun's not out.
Limited exceptions aside, the only thing keeping solar from being part of the standard roof installation is that even with 50-75% subsidization on the part of various government agencies the payback is over 20 years in most cases. If you assume a 5-10% cost of capitol, many systems would never break even.
Cut the cost of panels in half and double the cost of electricity and it makes sense in orders of magnitude more places, such as areas where electricity is extremely expensive, such as some European countries and California when the legislature is having a particularly large cow.
Get the cost of an install that'll cover ~50% of a home's needs down to ~$2-4/watt and I'd expect them to be building factories to build the panels left and right. I say 50% because more than that and you'll likely need battery banks($$$) to go off the grid otherwise the power companies will start doing things like charge a monthly connection fee to pay for infrastructure and maintenance, and refuse to buy power because they have no demand when you have power to sell.
A single watt of panel can be expected to produce ~2-3 kwh a year. If you're paying $.30 a kwh, you're looking at a payback period of around 4-5 years. That's reasonable. The problem: I haven't seen a new panel kit for less than $10/watt, and I only pay $.10 per kwh. So I'm not installing them anytime soon.
I don't read AC A human right
A pebble got stuck in the reactor and some idiot tried to move it with a metal pole, breaking it. The "radiation release" wasn't airborne, it was a few pieces of broken pebble. At no point was anybody in any danger.
The reason the reactor was closed down was:
a) This is Germany, the land of green
b) It happened two weeks after Three-Mile Island when the press was full of nuclear nightmare stories.
Pebble bed reactors are not as 'safe' as people say
Yes they are. Nobody's claiming 100% safety - there's always unexpected idiots with metal poles.
Besides, if "safety" is your concern: Do you have any idea how much radioactivity and other contaminants the average coal fired power station releases into the air per year? How many coal miners die every year to feed that plant...?
Pebble-bed reactors are orders of magnitude cleaner/safer than coal-fired generators, it's just that coal seems "natural", it comes out of the ground and hippies can hold it in their hands.
No sig today...