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| Science |
| Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes |
| 2008-11-09 |
| Hat tip Instapundit Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground. The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.' Probably means a kw/hour Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said. Take that oil ticks! |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #6 Excellent, wonder if she has a patent on that reflux-battery, if not why not? |
| Posted by: .5MT 2008-11-09 21:38 |
| #5 The wife and I were flying out to the left coast to visit the daughter in October. I picked up the October 2008 issue of Discovery and was thumbing through it. The following excerpt caught my attention: "...an obscure piece of technology known as the vanadium redox flow battery. This unusual battery was invented more than 20 years ago by Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, a tenacious professor of electro chemistry at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The vanadium battery has a marvelous advantage over lithium-ion and most other types of batteries. It can absorb and release huge amounts of electricity at the drop of a hat and do so over and over, making it ideal for smoothing out the flow from wind turbines and solar cells. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-11-09 17:11 |
| #4 I had to dig around on the Hyperion web site, but eventually I found it in a press release: "Each unit produces 70 MWt, or 27 MWe when connected to a steam turbine - enough to provide electricity for 20,000 average American-size homes or the industrial equivalent." So the price they're touting is just a heat source: steam turbines, condensers, generators, etc. are not included. Don't get too excited. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2008-11-09 16:54 |
| #3 I'll believe it when I see it. The numbers sound more like wild promotional marketing than engineering numbers, and there are a whole lot of unanswered questions like where does the waste heat go and who pays for the fuel reprocessing and disposal. "Probably means a kw/hour" No, I think they do mean 10 cents a watt. $250 per home would allow each home 2,500 watts. Not enough for my modest home, but it may be enough in parts of the UK. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2008-11-09 16:47 |
| #2 Color me skeptical. If they don't have demonstration models now, they won't be shipping anything in five years. And if they ever do have an actual product the cost will be more like $250MM/unit after litigation related expense. |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2008-11-09 16:29 |
| #1 Jump on it. This is fantastic! |
| Posted by: newc 2008-11-09 13:52 |