1 This should solve Iran's problems once and for all.

2 I want one!

3 This will work because people who don't want to even have a reactor in the same state as them will suddenly think it's cool to have one in the basement of their apartment building.

While you'll save money on power you expense for having to hire to hire Blackwater to protect it and from terrorist attack will be a wee bit on the expensive side.

And the NRC is just going to let anyone who wants to buy one have it. Yep, sure.

Flying cars will be on the market sooner. And personal jet packs, don't forget personal jet packs.

4 What about those SNAP thingy's they put into spacecraft?  They generate heat by isotopic decay and use it to generate electricity via thermocouple.  Must be pretty much maintenance-free if it is a few million miles away in space, hauling ass the other way, and expected to run 20-30 years.  Maybe not very efficient overall, however. Can't remember what SNAP stands for.

5 Ehhhhhh-cellent!

6 Mr. Fusion

7 I want one for my sump pump for when the power goes out.

8 Japan - Fuck yeah!

9 Thanks to Roland, who may or may not be headless and may or may not be a machine-gunner.


'Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner' is the name of that song i think.

10 By the way, this is to the power companies what mobiles and voip are to the phone companies.  Except, pretty much we're not going to get one of these any time soon, but I'd really like one.  I still haven't put power in at my construction site because I just can't bring myself to speak with the ditz they call an "engineer" at the public utilities.  Did they have a Title 9 for engineering, too?

11 Assuming it's perfectly safe, you'll never be able to keep the thing running for all the loons constantly trying to blow it up.

12

I'm no expert (I was a nuclear engineering student for one year, before I switched to civil engineering, but that and $2.50 will buy me a cup of Starbucks), but I'm both fascinated and wary of this development.

 

200 kb per unit?  That's pretty good, considering that the reactor's only got a 120 SF footprint.  Normal power plants are usually 200 MB or more, which is 100X the output of this plant, but as the article mentions, this would be great for isolated communities or big business electricity users.  On-site generation with one of these plants means that you don't have to build a big power line to bring in electricity, and the cost savings could be used to pay for the maintenance & security needed by this nuke plant.  One possible use they didn't mention?  "Nuke Farms", where they've got tens, hundreds, or even thousands of these things sitting next to each other in a secured location.  If a plant goes down for maintenance, not a problem, since it's just a small cog in the greater machine.  Plus, you can cycle up/cycle down individual units to match the ups & downs of demand on a particular grid.

 

The part that I'd like to know more about is the "lithium 6" neutron absorption system.  It sounds like a nice way to cool a system, but how foolproof is it in field operation?  There was an experimental reactor in Idaho back in the 50's that melted down and killed it's operators that was cooled with an experimental system (what's the material that catches fire when exposed to water?  Damn, I saw this on a "Engineering Disasters" episode on the History Channel, but the particular material used for cooling is slipping my mind right now), and I'd be worried that this cooling system is another "looks good on paper, leaves a toxic puddle in reality" miracle-cure for nukes.

 

  I'm gonna treat these systems like new car models.  I'll let the first-year buyers deal with all the bugs & wait to get one myself for a decade or so until they've worked out all the kinks.

13

what's the material that catches fire when exposed to water? 

Sodium.

14 Gimme.  Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme.

15

what's the material that catches fire when exposed to water? 

Nancy Pelosi.

Oh, wait- I'm thinking of melting, not catching fire.  Nevermind.

16

200 kb per unit?  That's pretty good, considering that the reactor's only got a 120 SF footprint.  Normal power plants are usually 200 MB or more,

Shit, dude - what size is your PC?  I mean, seriously, 200kb for a 120sf footprint might have been good in the 70's, but today that's the crap.

17 Most of the Alkaline metals (Chemist here).

Lithium will burn in water too.  That's why you have to be really careful with your laptop batteries.

18 OK,  google....click

E-bay...click

Nu clee ear reactor...click

Maximum bid....click

Watch this item...click

Now it's just a waiting game.

19 We need one of these ASAP.

Thanks.

20 Scary--like abandoning the rule in order to drive a car safely you need, I mean seriously, you NEEED, WE ALL NNEEEEDDD for you to have a man walking along in front of you with a flag and a lantern.

Whatever is this world coming to?

And how many comments systems we go going here?

21

  Yeah, sodium.  That's what I was thinking, but then I thought "Sodium?  Are you sure?"  Guess that proves that you should always go with your first instincts.  Thanks CAD Daddy, you're a lifesaver.

  Anyway, the experimental reactor was using a recirculating liquid sodium cooling system, but the unforseen problem was the corrosive effects of high-temperature liquid sodium on the recirculation pipes.  The cooling system failed, the reaction chamber overheated & melted, and the three operators in the plant died within minutes.  The AEC footage they showed on History Channel showed crews dashing into the containment structure, grabbing some stuff, and dashing out again, since the "safe" exposure time in the hot zone was less than 10 minutes, even with all the protective gear. 

  The old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) classified the event & it only became public a few years ago.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Japanese engineers dotted all their I's and crossed all their T's in doing this design, but sometimes factors crop up after long use of a product that don't seem to be problems during the design phase.  Let's put a couple of them on line ASAP, and if they're still working OK by 2018, we can cover the effing country in them.

22 Scary--like abandoning the rule in order to drive a car safely you need, I mean seriously, you NEEED, WE ALL NNEEEEDDD for you to have a man walking along in front of you with a flag and a lantern.

Whatever is this world coming to?

23
I'll be hooking my portable Nuke plant up to a Sybian  because I care about the ladies.

24 and by "most", I meant "all" the alkaline metals ignite when in contact with water.


Well, the reaction is 2__ + (2)H2O = @2___OH + H2.  The H2 gas ignites due the heat generated by the reaction.

25 I am so putting this in the wedding registry.

26
Well, the reaction is 2 bowls of chili + (2)H2O = @2 cases of beer OH + H2.  The H2 gas ignites due the heat generated by the reaction.

Fixed that for ya.

27

Did they have a Title 9 for engineering

Yes. They are called IEs and have degrees from Penn State that say "Industrial Engineer" on them. But actually, IE stands for Imaginary Engineer. Also, anyone with an engineering degree of any kind from any school in the midwest (see interstate highways in and around the Kansas City area for more information).

 

28

kb, kW. 

220, 230. 

Whatever it takes.

29 That's one hell of a chili to disassociate water into protons and hydroxide!


Can I get the recipe?

30 I'll be hooking my portable Nuke plant up to a Sybian  because I care about the ladies.

See? Now there's a man with his priorities straight.

31 I'll be in my bunk, glowing.

32 I want.

However:
$0.05 / (Kw*hour) * 200 KW * 24 hours / day * 365.25 days / year * 40 years = $3.5 million.

If you finance it for 15 years at 6% you're looking at payments of over $29,000 / MONTH, with a cost of 7.5 cents KWH, assuming you run it all out the entire month.

:-(

33 Can I get the recipe?

Just take your favorite chili, add two habanero peppers and a half pound of potassium.

34

Oh great.

I've been promising the nephew I'd finish that SheVa I've been building in the back garden, but I've been putting him off by pointing out that there are no commercially available nuclear power plants small enough to fit inside the hull.

Do you think he'll buy that the original Bun Bun used pebble bed reactors? That might buy me a bit of time.

Otherwise it's going to be a bugger explaining to the neighbours why their vegetable garden, (and house, and the rest of the street), have been flattened on Christmas Day.

35 ...add two habanero peppers and a half pound of potassium.
then run like hell.

36

Yeah, I think A Guy has pointed out the unfortunate economics of this thing, not to mention you'll probably have to disclose this when you sell the place.

I suspect this thing will get used in North Pole station and similarly remote places.

37 The micronuke story doesn't really make sense, at least as Next Energy News describes it. (and remember, NEN is the site that had the Bussard rumor that turned out to be wrong). First off, the claim of 5 cents per kwh seems inaccurate, based on the 10 cents per kwh in the Link 1 story -- which was just for operating costs. I would guess you can at least triple that for total cost. And it's not "totally automatic," the steam turbine will require maintenance and supervision.

The design is worrying as well. OK, sure, you can use lithium as a moderator, but its expensive and dangerous. And the idea you can have that much neutron flux and not do any maintenance for 30 years seems implausible.

Finally, it seems a bit telling that the last story about the Alaskan town was from 2005, and mentioned hurdles like "tens of millions" for NRC approval and potentially deal-killing hostility from neighbors.

This might have applications in very remote areas, but it's not going to power a suburban neighborhood. And NEN doesn't impress me as having even a layman's grasp of nuclear power.

I'll be surprised, but not shocked, if they do actually build one of these somewhere remote in Japan. Most likely it will never get beyond PowerPoint slides.

38 "The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6 blah blah blah blahbety blah. "

See, this is how I like my science talk. I totally get the "blahbety blah" part. Ya know, right to the point. All those filbbity, highfalutin words just won't fit in my brain.

39 God how I hate neutron flux. But what a great name for a band.

40 Wait, isn't neutron flux the fuel used for a flux capacitor? No, that was a banana peel. Thought I was on to something there. Never mind.

41

Oh wait, I missed the "flux capacitor" in the design. 

Well, that solves everything.

42

#'s 36 and 37 have twigged onto the usage for the thing.  As pointed out on Instapundit, these units *are* designed for remote locations where you'd otherwise have to run about a trillion miles of powerline (think many locations [towns] in Alaska, etc., etc.

As for Li-6, well, we know quite a bit about that isotope after a booboo or two in the 50's (think Castle Bravo, Romeo, Yankee and a few other H-bomb tests that went off with a slightly higher than planned yield).

ABA (nuclear chemist by day, all around geek by night)

43

Giant

Well, of course it does. See, lawyers are good for something, after all.

44

Bah, they don't even taste good.

45 ABA (nuclear chemist by day, all around geek by night)

Easy to spot - he glows in the dark.

46 It's just the Cherenkov.  Nothing to worry about.

47

There are some regions of the Periodic Table that are "no go zones".  Alkali metal land is one of them. 

Is the lithium used as a heat conductor or a reaction controller or both?

(Another chemist piping in.)

48 However:
$0.05 / (Kw*hour) * 200 KW * 24 hours / day * 365.25 days / year * 40 years = $3.5 million.

If you finance it for 15 years at 6% you're looking at payments of over $29,000 / MONTH, with a cost of 7.5 cents KWH, assuming you run it all out the entire month.

:-(

Posted by: A Guy

Why are you calculating the value of the electricity as if it were a cost?  You sell the electricity.  You finance the plant it self.

49

eman,

Apparently both. I presume that via neutron capture you get Li-7 (I wonder how they'll separate this out?). BTW, lithium metal is the least reactive of the alkali metals with dihydrogen monoxide or oxygen. (Chemisty degree 1979, but never used as such.)

50

Yikes,

Read Chemistry for Chemisty...guess it's time to hit my bunk .

51

eman,

Apparently both. I presume that via neutron capture you get Li-7 (I wonder how they'll separate this out?). BTW, lithium metal is the least reactive of the alkali metals with dihydrogen monoxide or oxygen. (Chemisty degree 1979, but never used as such.)

Posted by: Hank Rearden

Thanks, dude.  I'll have to do some googling on this.  Got my degree in 1981 and man am I rusty.  Do they have to use the lithium in elemental form?  Why can't you use a concentrated lithium salt solution?

52 Crap, forgot the name change. 

53 Wibble. Me wants. Of course that month with no electricity after Katrina may be coloring my perceptions a wee bit..

54 More info on the system: http://www.utnl.jp/~rohonbu/PBNC/1-1.pdf The fuel is "Proliferation resistant."

55 I'm going to wait for the cheap PRC knockoff that has lead paint.  A lot of lead might not be such a bad idea with one of these babys.

56

Is the lithium used as a heat conductor or a reaction controller or both?

Um, you're asking this in the comments?  Is this your first time visiting Ace of Spades HQ?

57 Why can't you use a concentrated lithium salt solution?

Then you have to ask yourself what the chlorine-35 and -37 do to the neutronics of the reactor.

58

Um, you're asking this in the comments?  Is this your first time visiting Ace of Spades HQ?

Posted by: JohnW

 

Is that where we are?  I thought this was GeekWorld.net

 

 

59

Why can't you use a concentrated lithium salt solution?

Then you have to ask yourself what the chlorine-35 and -37 do to the neutronics of the reactor.

Now that's a comment that I bet you'll never see on the DailyKos.

Ace of Spades: come for the titties and cursing, stay for the nuclear chemistry.

60

Sneaky bastard counterions!

 

61

M Simon, who is a retired nuclear engineer, also mentioned on his blog that this reactor would have the problem of xenon poisoning.

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

 

62 Radiation. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.

63 Asher, a lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?

64

I suspect this thing will get used in North Pole station and similarly remote places.

There's a gazillion barrels of oil in  northern Canukistan just crying out for these babys .

65 Lithium will burn in water too.  That's why you have to be really careful with your laptop batteries.

No shit. My chem teacher had some fun with alkalines. Had a big fishtank of water, and put nice thimble-sized chunk of Potassium in the tank. Fucker burned like no-ones business. CO2 fire extinguisher was standing by just in case, but it was quite a sight. Also had to be careful to dispose of the water, as some of it likely became KOH (but there was a lot of water, so it was probably highly diluted.


Chemistry was fun.

66 Well, the reaction is 2__ + (2)H2O = @2___OH + H2.  The H2 gas ignites due the heat generated by the reaction.

In other words, the fucker gives up the hydrogen MOST exotherically. Drop in water and run the fuck away.

67 Can I get the recipe?

Sure:

1 pint Pinto beans
1 cup jalapeno peppers
10g Cesium (ex vacuum)
Fire-retardant clothing.

68 *ex vacuo--sorry, wrong case.

69 Assuming it's perfectly safe, you'll never be able to keep the thing running for all the loons constantly trying to blow it up. Posted by: CAD Daddy

The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet

Um, who was going to tell them?  I'm just going to tack lumber on the outside and call it a storage shed.

Then put some solar panels on the roof (or something that looks like solar panels, whatever is cheap) and claim that's how I stay off the grid.  Blow me up?  They'll love me like one of their own.

70 This conundrum is easy to solve...take all of that lithium, cut it into doses, and administer it to all of the fucking liberal assclowns who won't allow nuclear electrical plants. The leftards calm the hell down, we get cheap(er) juice, and everything is all better.

71

skh.pcola,

Yeah, hematopoietic syndrome does tend to make one sit down & be quiet...

72 Asher, a lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?

Some goodies for the Repo Fans. Here's the expurgated version with the extra lines from Fox Harris's monologue:

J: J. Frank Parnell [shakes Otto's hand]
O: Ahh... Ahhh... Otto.
J: What line of work are you in?
O: [still panting] Reh... Reh...
J: Rock and Roller, eh? I used to be a musician myself. College days. Of course, it was folk songs and protest songs back then. [sings] We shall overcome, we shall overcome... [pauses, fiddles with ear] You ever feel as if your mind started to erode?
O: No.
J: Ever been to Utah?
O: Uhuh.
J: I go to Utah every year. A friend of mine was the designer of the MX Missile Racetrack Basing Mode. 100,000 miles of railroad track in a big loop in Utah, Arizona and Nevada. Bombs were going to hide in locomotive sheds. That way, the red team would never know exactly where they were. [pauses] I still go out to Utah just to think about the way things might have been.
O: Sir, I represent the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation.
J: [Parnell starts the rant about radiation from posting #62] I showed them, man! I had a lobotomy.
O: Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?
J: Not at all! Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb [Parnell carries on about the neutron bomb, its morality and how it forced his friend to have a lobotomy]
O: What kind of car does your friend drive?
J: Chevy Malibu.
O: Don't you do the same kind of work?
J: Didn't I tell you, I can't tell you what I do. I'm classified.
O: This really is a nice old car. Why don't you let me drive?
J: Whaddya mean?
O: Well, I don't know, I mean ah... don't you feel funny?
J: Why should I feel funny? Two hemispheres fundamentally at odds... hemisphere... hemisphere. You know, it's strange, I do feel funny [head drops onto steering wheel & horn, car crashes against curb]

73 Why are you calculating the value of the electricity as if it were a cost? You sell the electricity. You finance the plant it self.

No cost for the plant was given. The story makes it sound as if the fuel rods come with the plant, and don't get replaced. Given that information, a first order esitmate of the cost of the thing is "cost = energy produced x 'cost' of the energy".

If you have a better way to figure out the price, tell me.

74

A Guy,

A better way to figure out the price?  I think you don't figure out the price, you ask for the price.  You figure out if the price and operating costs do or do not require selling some of the power you generate.  If you see this plant like you would see putting a new furnace in your house, then your calculation stands well on its own.  But, if you see the plant as a business investment, then your calculation is not enough,

That's what I was getting at.  

75 dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

76

Dear Sir,

We have big interest to yuor invention. Best Regards Yalalt. Director of the HPC & ThermoSscientific Division of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences

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