Mini nuclear plant is safe, affordable and purifies water (but doesn't turn lead into gold)

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]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 12th 2008 10:45AM]

I read Hyperion's website and it turns out it's NOT 10,000 homes but 20,000 homes but there's no mention of a 10 year lifespan (from what's on their front page anyway) $25 million seems to be VERY cheap for something that could turn out to be very profitable for a power company. Why can't third world countries get one of these and supplement what the energy infrastructure that they already have. For example, the Philippines' installed capacity is at 15,937 MW as of 2007 so given that Hyperion's machine churns out 25MWe, ( i dunno if there's a difference but there's an 'e' on their website but I'll assume their the same) then my friggin country can more than double its capacity for just $25 million! whoa

[JZeke Posted Nov 12th 2008 12:04PM]

This is delicious:

"This containment, along with the strategy of completely burying the module at the operating site, protects against the possibility of HUMAN INCOMPETENCE, or hostile tampering and proliferation"

I love they've acknowledged that people = fail when it comes to nuclear pwr.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 12th 2008 3:25PM]

Do any of you know how nuclear power works?

$25m is just the cost of the reactor and all it does is make steam from controlled fission. You need a clean water supply (and, unless your water is pristine, water treatment equipment), pumps to circulate it, a turbine to convert the thermal energy of the steam into shaft work, a generator to convert the shaft work to electricity, power conditioning equipment to step it up to transmission voltage and down to house voltage, high-tension transmission lines if you are going to hook up to the grid, a thermal sink for condensing the water stream coming out of the turbine (Cooling towers, anyone? NIMBY will bite your ass on this.), piping, construction, and a small team of engineers and maintenance persons to keep the thing running. This setup has many finely tuned moving parts, the figurehead of which is a steam turbine that needs to be vibrationally isolated and regularly maintained. You'll need someone extremely knowledgeable about power conditioning and grid balancing (unless you plan to just ground generated but unused energy).

This is not a cheap operation.