Mini nuclear plant is safe, affordable and purifies water (but doesn't turn lead into gold)
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Nov 11th 2008 10:28AM
posted Nov 11th 2008 10:28AM
This isn't the first time we've seen a micro nuclear reactor, and with the looming energy crisis it probably won't be the last. Designed by scientists at Los Alamos, the Hyperion Power Module will retail for $25 million, has no moving parts, is about the size of a hot tub (less than 5 feet wide) and should generate enough electricity for about 10,000 homes, running up to ten years before it needs refueled. And if all that isn't enough, the company claims that the module is meltdown proof (the small amount of enclosed fuel would immediately cool if ever exposed to open air), that the enclosed material is unsuitable for proliferation, and in addition to generating inexpensive power the HPM can be used to purify water. Are you sold? Be sure to hit that read link -- Hyperion is taking orders now!
[Via Switched]
[Via Switched]
Oh no! Not the dreaded Ebergy Crisis!
The way I see it, this is the reason we need corporations competing for new alternative energy technology.
Say what you might but I KNOW that with more breakthroughs in technology, FUSION ENERGY IS POSSIBLE !
I want fusion so badly. fusion is plenty safer than Fission because the radioactive half lifes of Fusion waste are far shorter and because a Fusion plant WON'T MELT DOWN like a Fission reactor will.
The added benefit is you can quickly PURIFY WATER like they do on board nuclear submarines.
This makes me SO EXCITED !
LOUD NOISES
Ye, I totally agree kr.
FYI to people who don't know the difference, Fusion is combing atoms and Fission is destroying them. Current technology is Fission.
Good news Flashpoint, there are 2 test fusion reactors being built so you should see the wonderful world of fusion energy in your lifetime... I won't say if you'll see it powering your home or melting your eyeballs out though :P
Remember kids...
In Thermonuclear Warfare, the only winning move is not to play.
If you love fusion so much, why not just marry it?
As for me, I know that coal is the way forward. There's loads of it and power stations that use it are easy to build. Coal and nuclear are the only sensible options for the time being.
Ya but I can warm my snow suit by farting.
@ j_g_puff
And coal fired power stations pump out more radiation than a faulty reactor, the trace amounts of radium present in coal.
I'd rather have reactors, nuclear power is all we got, if petrol/gas/coal companies would stop lobbying against it we could get somewhere.
Maj,
I'm aware that they're fairly nasty, but they are very economical (it the sense of the economy, not necessarily in the sense of efficiency). nuclear is certainly part of the solution, but I understand that it's not always viable in certain locations/situations. The point is, these technologies should remain in use until renewable solutions become feasable - at present they are NOT feasable, and blindly promoting them over coal/nuclear/gas etc is only retarding the whole process.
The problem with Fusion is that, with current designs, you always use more power than you generate through the fusion process. Fusion has been going on for ages, it's just not a viable means of generating electricity yet.
I don't know about mini nuclear power stations. Surely you wouldn't be able to export them, and would be limited to US-based customers?
@robotochan
nice wargames reference...i've always loved that movie. "would you like to play a game?"
I'm still waiting for the day when crushed baby seals will be a source of energy.
@ Karlw
Actually thats a minsnomer. Modern fusion is sustained. It just only produces say (pulling stat out of my rump) 10000kwh over what it needs to sustain vs say (another stat pulled out of derrier) 1mw of a Fission reactor.
As I recall, the fusion reactors at the moment do *not* produce any power, as KarlW pointed out. However, the reason for this is because all of the fusion reactors to date have been too small to be self-sustaining, hence some energy input has been required to keep the reaction going. ITER will be the first reactor with the (potential) capability of self-sustaining fusion (and hence the first with the ability to generate energy)
@Cranius
1 milli-watt?? WTF
Fusion (commercially, anyway) is, at its earliest, going to be ready around 2060, and that's assuming that everything continues to plan. Remember that in the 1970's it was predicted that fusion would be live by the turn of the century.
JET at Culham Science Center, UK, is the world's current leading Fusion reactor, and even they can only get about 60% of the energy it takes to heat up the plasma back out from fusion process.
The ITER research reactor is the next step (it actually means "the next step" in Latin). Construction at Cadarache, France, started this year. It is assumed from the data collected from JET that ITER will be able to "break even"- that is, 100% of the energy required to start the process will be produced by actual fusion.
After that, DEMO (the Demonstration reactor), and after that, Fusion! So we're well on the way, but there will certainly still be a demand for energy sources that do not produce carbon dioxide (like the above Fission reactor) for a number of years yet.
Power producing fusion is technically possible right now, it's just that you need Helium 3. The only usable quantities of which have come from the moon. Unless you want the human race to become the space-roaming resource eating aliens from Independance Day, you have to find another solution.
Also, 'Hyperion' is the name of many techs in Galactic Civilizations.
This is all well and good, but you still need a turbine and generator plus a transformer and power conditioning equipment to get electricity out of it. It just makes hot water.
ebergy
Oh sure, you laugh now. You thibk current ebergy reserves will last forever.
You wob't be laughibg wheb all the ebergy is gobe.
NO BLOODY WAY this will ever get approved. First, whole energy business is government and their pals secured, thats why you need a licence to produce any kind of energy to sell in the market that is controlled by them. Also the whole lobby of gas, crude, oil refineries and even the new green-energy zealots will scream in dismay just seeing this thing.
currebt
bow.
And Boom goes the Dynamite.
Don't you mean dynanite?
Dybamite
its ok guys, i loaded up my kart with extra ebergy at wally world on saturday
...Pervert
this is so awesome, I need an ebergy machine for my house, I could see the ebergy to my neighbors!
Thats pretty cool - and totally redefines "hot tub." Its a jacuzzi you can tan in!
also, cancer!
That's a given when tanning is involved.
Can I expect symptoms of a third arm within 5 years? If so, count me in!
I got a third arm.... in my pants!!!
Sorry.. I can't help myself..
That's what she said! That's what she said! That's what she said!
She has a third arm in her pants? kinky
He is the new she.
proofreading crisis
$21/month for electricity, coolo! I'll take two!
Wow, you're right, it works out to like $20.80 a month over 10 years with 10,000 contributing. What are we waiting for? Sign us all up!
Um, you could get two for that price. Assuming that you can get another 19,999 people on board with you.
$25,000,000/20,000(number from their site)=$1,250 cost per household served
$1,250/10=$125 per year
$125/12=$10.42 per month for electricity.
$25M / 10,000 households = $2500 up front for 10 years of electricity or $21/per month per household
Or...
$25M financed for 10yrs at 6% with an additional 50% of price in transmission costs and taxes = $41.63 per household/month for electricity. Very affordable.
Oh, I was working off the quote from the CEO:
-- "Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world," said John Deal, CEO of Hyperion. "[The nuclear plants] will cost approximately $25 million each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home."
Actually Chris is right. While kal326 is right that website says the reactor will supply 20000 homes not 10000, the site also says the reactor lasts for about 5 years not 10. Which results in the same $21 per month number.
The reactor is probably capable of operating at half capacity for twice the lifetime, which would account for the different numbers out there.
Unfortunately It would cost more than that.
Everyone's forgetting about what it'll cost to get the power to the homes.
Lets say a community decides to purchase one. They'd either have to lease the copper wires from the local power company or put in their own. Then you'd have to either hire maintenance crews or sign a deal with the local power supplier to provide the maintenance. Also unless you just wanted to split the bill evenly, you'd have to hire people to read the meters, .....
Not sure how much all this would add. .
Power distribution lines are made of aluminum, not copper (though the same can't be said for some of the internals of the goodies on ground level). While not as conductive, it is FAR cheaper. I'd imagine that these plants are the sort of option you'd use if you were looking to supplement an existing power grid just as much as you would in a small community. How often are entirely new towns created/founded in this country? In either case, those infrastructure costs come into play whether your juice comes from starship engines or cracked out ex-con gerbils running on treadmills. So, yes...it would cost a bit more than $21/month/customer to build and run these plants, but any cost increases in infrastructure and maintenance would be spread across all the customers on that grid, not the 10,000 homes closest to the mini nuke plant. So....not much more. Certainly any savings would be passed on to all of the customers on that grid as well, assuming they're passed on along at all. All considered, the upsides sound as though they far outweigh the downsides.
As far as the assumption that "energy business" wouldn't all you to run something like this, that's been wrong for many years already. Private entities that generate their own power, run their own equipment, and sell surplus energy to the grid are a daily reality. That goes for private citizens (obviously on a smaller scale) and private companies. Granted, a mini nuclear plant would be harder than your average generation source to get approved, but that would change once the safety claims are proven (meltdown-proof and unsuitability of waste for weaponization).
What about the cost of storing the used atomic fuel safely for a few million years?
Use the power of the sun, the wind, the water, do not go for the "easy" solution, nuclear fission, as it is never going to be safe. The more the USA and other western countries are promoting nuclear power, the more all other countries in this world are going to want that kind of power. Many of those do not have the stability to run nuclear power plants safely, not even those little ones. Can they handle their nuclear waste safely, or might they even be tempted to use it as a threat?
Please consider this when dreaming of nuclear power as the solution to all energy problems.
Can I have one in my back yard? No really, someone has to be the guinnea pig. Stick it in my backyard and power the 10k homes around me as long as I get the power for free I'll live with the third, er.... wait, 4th eye growing on my ass.
Well, look at this way, you'll be able to see everything!!
So where is the third one???
At least you'll be able to respond when your wife/gf says. "Get your head out of your ass", "It's not there I just looked" :)
Seriously, though, as long as you maintained the reactor properly, you'd likely be getting way less radiation from that than you already do from your cell phone. Or the sun.
Now if my friend who never cleans his apartment had one of these in his backyard... I'd probably keep my distance.
Prying open my third eye!!!
THINK ABOUT IT...
You can power 10,000 homes for around 9~10 years and each unit costs just $25 Million!
The damn thing PAYS FOR ITSELF !
...you know, i wasn't really sold on the whole idea, but your capital letters -- it's hard to argue with that.
If they can get the price lower, I actually see this as being crucial in developing countries. With populations growing in developing areas, cheap electricity and clean water are two extremely important basic necessities.
I can see this playing as important of a role as medical support and OLPC can play.
Are you crazy? That stupid cheap in the long run. Let's say a city want's to buy it and make extra money.
$50/month per resident (considering 10,000 residents) for 10 years = $60,000,000
That's a $35,000,000 dollar profit in 10 years. They would break even in 4 years and 2 months.
Umm...get the price lower??? This is by far the cheapest energy available. The average US household uses around 1000 kWh per month. This means that 10,000 homes average 10,000,000 kWh per month, and over 10 years (120 months) they use a total of 1,200,000,000 kWh on average. So at $25,000,000 per 1,200,000,000 kWh, that is equal to $0.0208333/kWh. 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for the customer!!! In comparison, the average US cost per kWh in April 2008 was $0.11, or more than 5 times as much as this reactor costs!
developing nations? LOL
i think google server farms will score a few first :)
$.11 per kwh? Last bill I checked was about $.063. I guess it varies depending on location.
And not just developing countries, but military uses and disaster relief would be two other great applications, depending on the portability of the unit. If this company or another company built a modular distribution infrastructure with easy attachment to the reactor and the proper transformers to get the correct voltage, this would be awesome. Relief for recent natural disasters (the tsunami, Katrina, etc) could really have benefited from this sort of thing. Power and clean water.
ebergy
I'll put it on the back of my truck and drive forever, buahahahaha
How much for the weapons grade model?
I think the fuel last for around 5 years but I could be mistaken. These generators would be perfect for large military vehicles. They would be able to power rail guns, "lasers", and propulsion. The spent fuel is the size of a softball.
And when you are done you can just lob the softball sized spent fuel at your enemies on the battlefield.
Sorry, how much is it? $25 million? Only.
Well, let's check my payslip and see if there is something left: maybe I'll buy one right now.
It gets my vote.
I think this sounds great. If you can have a bunch of these somewhere where no one is allowed to go (say NM?)...and farm them to produce enough for a city...say NYC? that's sounds like a good investment.
If you bought 20,000 of them you could power all of the US electricity grid. It would cost $500 billion and fit on less than 15 acres of land, but it would probably be better to have them decentralized.
No one is allowed to go to NM? All of us "no ones" here didn't get that memo. ;)
we like to call those nuclear power plants...
Great....it's 25 million so that means Steve Jobs,Bill Gates and any other rich a hole can pretty much live forever.
I just hope none of the rich idiotic celebrities dont get a hold of these...oy.
This is definitely more probable than "clean" coal. Actually $25 million is a deal.
i wonder if an individual could get bank financing for this and just plug it into the grid. the local power provider would have to reimburse you for the power, right?
if i could get a business loan for this, couldn't i become an instant power provider in my region? and if the local power company just writes me a check, then there's no accounting hassle. at least that's how it works with solar and wind power- why not with nucular.
anyone want to go in on it with me?
That's what I was thinking, too. However, finding a good place to set it up might be more of an issue, given the typical knee-jerk reactions of people hearing "nuclear" and "next door" in the same sentence.
Buying another one every ten years might also be problematic, depending on how much the power company is willing to pay for the power you're generating. More power = cheaper power = less profit.
the permiting might be a problem on that one...
We've run into a lot of issues when adding large solar arrays to homes in the office, or at least trying to. Anything that Generates over 16kW and you're in for a large "bag of hurt" from Uncle Sam as you're going to be taxed like a Utilities provider. So you might need to take on 2-3 to offset the taxes. You're probably going to have to lease access to the power grid too with something that large?
I don't think I'd go in on a business deal with anyone who spells nuclear "nucular". Sorry!
if it can power 10,000 homes for 10 years, could it power 100 homes for 1000 years?
if so, then that seems like a better use of it. put one of these on every street every hundred or so houses and be all set with energy till the y3k crisis.
10,000 homes = $2500 each
100 homes = $250,000 each
I'm guessing they are thinking most people can afford the cost of $2500, i doubt many could afford $250k
unfortunately, no. power output over time is at a set rate of decay based on the half-life of the matter used in the fission process. the nuclear reaction itself occurs at a set rate over time, larger plants throttle output with removable control rods that stop the reaction from happening. the "Mr. Fission Mini Reactor" has no moving parts so it's really a fission battery.
I always wanted a Tokamak in my backyard with a smaller one mounted in my chest to keep the metal shards from entering my heart. Maybe i could use the chest reactor to power a red and gold exo-suit for heavy lifting around the house and general crime fighting in third world countries.
I think Al Gore bought 2 last week to power his power-guzzling home
my poop! where'd it go!? mini nuclear plants scare me so much I've lost it!
Yup .... Assuming you could find a bank to give you a loan at 5%, you could charge each of the 10,000 homeowners $30/month for electricity and make a profit. This assumes you could use existing infrastructure. Unfortunately the forthcoming admin. is generally opposed to proliferation of Nuclear power in the USA.
I did the same math eberyone else did, taking the $50 a month aberage cost, so this seems bery cost effectibe.
How many windmills and solar cell power plants can you get for $25 million, and will they power 10,000 homes? I suspect that wind and solar power may last longer than 10 years and gibe eben greater ROI.
If a hot tub size can power 10,000 homes for 10 years... What size do I need to power my tesla roadster for 10 years? ("My tesla roadster... I wish)
So I am wondering why they cannot reduce this down further to a unit the size of a toaster that puts out about 4kwh, enough for the average home. If it cost $5K, then it would still be a bargain for 10 years of power.
Because containment is still required, and the pressure in the primary requires a certain tensile strength. Basically this is about as small as you can go given current material science.
Sure, fission reactors are nothing more than glorified pressure cookers, but ever see a pressure cooker smaller than the one your grandmother had? Probably not because there's limits on what can be done with boiling water and steam pressure unfortunately.
Now, being as this is probably a "pebble bed" design and the fuel is encased in ceramic spheres that self-regulate, it is incredibly safe and smaller than a "pole-hole" reactor that requires circulation pumps and tighter controls (ask me about Delta-T). And, it's *cheap*.
This is actually great news. I was wondering when the NRC would get off their high horse and let folks use the pebble bed designs. :)
5k / 120 months = 41$/month If your bill is bellow that, don't touch this. In fact, don't touch the fissionable material with the extra arm, please.
Not a pebble bed. Liquid metal reactor. Pebble beds have moving parts to shuttle the graphite balls around.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/11/update-on-hyperion-power-generation.html
The Hyperion reactors are self-regulating by nature. If they get too hot, the reaction is impaired. Apparently, it's the same safety mechanism as is used in university Triga reactors.
monthly electric bill :30 bucks(can be higher).
30x12(months) x 10 years x 10000 house =36 million.
So, to keep 10'000 house for 10 years currently can cost 36 millions versus the 25 million using this device.
So yes, 25 millions is a great deal.
$30/Month? I'm guessing you don't live in a house.
O M G think about it you could have the biggest underground marijuana grow op ever, it's limitless I can't wait!!!
Actually, wind and solar are much more expensive. Also, no you cannot make this power 100 homes for 1000 years. It must be refueled after 10 years, period. However, at the 10 year mark you don't have to buy an entire reactor, just pay for refueling. The reactor should last several decades (much longer than wind turbines and solar cells).
If you bought one of these and charged on average $0.08 per kWh, you'd pull in about $800k per month. It would take over 31 years to get your investment back, and that's not counting the cost of money (money in your hands now is worth more in the future). It's not a great investment unless you need to replace an aging source or need to get an initial source (developing areas).
Umm 31 years? I think you mean 31 months, do your math again...
Do you really mean an income of $800k per month (100 kWh per household per month)? Or per year?
Per month if you pull in $800k you'd get your money back in 31 months - sounds like a pretty fine investment to me!
Ah dammit you're right....I was in a hurry. 31 months if you charge fairly standard rates, or just over 2.5 years. In the same amount of time if you invested that $25 million at 6% annual return (this is a low estimate, standard estimate is 8%), you'd have just over $29 mil, or a profit of about $4 million. You'd see an actual return after about 3 years.
"the company claims that the module is meltdown proof"
well, as if the customer would still be alive to claim the warranty incase theres a meltdown.
IANANE (I am not a nuclear engineer), but I'd guess the relation isn't linear, due to fuel material radioactivity decay.