Distributed "Nuclear Batteries" the New Infrastructure Answer?

thepacketmaster writes "The Star reports about a new power generation model using smaller distributed power generators located closer to the consumer. This saves money on power generation lines and creates an infrastructure that can be more easily expanded with smaller incremental steps, compared to bigger centralized power generation projects. The generators in line for this are green sources, but Hyperion Power Generation, NuScale, Adams Atomic Engines (and some other companies) are offering small nuclear reactors to plug into this type of infrastructure. The generator from Hyperion is about the size of a garden shed, and uses older technology that is not capable of creating nuclear warheads, and supposedly self-regulating so it won't go critical. They envision burying reactors near the consumers for 5-10 years, digging them back up and recycling them. Since they are so low maintenance and self-contained, they are calling them nuclear batteries."

Comments

why not just do this with solar.

[Brigadier]

why bring back the risk of meltdown/contamination. This can be achieved using solar and wind. same distributed concept. Just instead of a power cell you have a house covered with solar panels or a wind generator.

Yes this wont' work everywhere but it is viable in many high demand locations ergo Southern California.

Re:why not just do this with solar.

[radtea]

"Virtually no waste" translates into "Japan believes it has correctly accounted for all the plutonium in its reprocessing network even though accounting errors have resulted in a thousand kilograms going missing."

Reprocessing is clearly a desirable thing to do from all kinds of standpoints, but the issues of safe transport for the cores and actually maintaining a sufficiently accurate inventory on the fissile material create huge practical problems.

Remember, over a decade or two you will be moving millions of kg of material around for reprocessing, so if you inventory control is 99.9% accurate you will still have enough missing plutonium to make a hundred-odd nice little nuclear bombs.

Re:why not just do this with solar.

[fnj]

Batteries aren't efficient for a large scale solution. They're short-lived, they're low capacity, and energy is lost in the charging process.

Batteries using crappy technology are all of those things, but there's one battery technology that was invented 108 years ago that still impresses: the Edison Cell; nickel-iron-potash. Yeah, admittedly it's bulky and heavy per kwh, and expensive, and capacity temporarily takes a hit in a cold environment, but it's not short lived. There are cases on record where these have been in service (or worse, put away and neglected) for 50 or more years, and are still in perfect condition with nearly 100% of their original as-built capacity.

They have no memory effect; they tolerate conditions that kill other types, such as being left indefinitely in a fully discharged state, or grossly overcharged, or kept on indefinite float charge; the plates do not degrade; electrolyte vapour or spills do not corrode metals in the nearby environment.

They can be readily acquired in cell sizes up to 1220ah 1.2v, even by individuals. The cells can be put in series and series-parallel to get any desired energy capacity.

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

http://www.beutilityfree.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44&Itemid=129

http://www.beutilityfree.com/content/pdf_files/NiFeFlyer.pdf

Re:Need more guarantees than that

[dafrazzman]

Most reactors are built in such a way that automatically prevents them from going over critical (critical is where you want to be, as someone already pointed out). The very nature of their design, assuming something doesn't mess up, keeps them safe.

The thing is, even though reactors are built with countless safety features, something could still go wrong. That's why you have professionals constantly (or at least daily) monitoring everything. Now, if you go and produce millions of mini-reactors, put them in the backyards of regular citizens, give them nothing but automated monitoring, and leave them going for awhile, something is eventually going to go wrong. It still might work on a one-community-at-a-time basis, though. As long as appropriate precautions are taken, nuclear power is extremely effective and clean (compared to coal).

Re:Need more guarantees than that

[AKAImBatman]

Summary is incorrect. The "nuclear battery" (incorrect name) would have a 99.5% chance of "going critical". After all, that's what nuclear power plants do. What they mean is that the plant would have an infinitesimally small chance of achieving super-criticality. Super-criticality would be a very bad thing, but even that can be mitigated with enough cement. End result? The reactor will be as safe or safer than installing a Diesel Generator in the same location. But it will be more powerful, economical, and environmentally friendly.

Re:BIG psychological barrier

[AK Marc]

And the followup studies found the correlation to be with the herbacides used to clear the vegitation around the power lines, and not the power lines themselves.

Re:Critical

[Chris Burke]

You say nuclear power's problems have been mitigated by learning from our mistakes, why would the same not be true for solar?

The use of nasty chemicals in solar manufacturing is not a "mistake", it's an intentional and necessary part of the process. I won't say it's impossible not to, but that would be the discovery of a fantastic new manufacturing technique, not learning from a mistake.

Whereas Chernobyl was a mistake that we have learned from.