Micro nuke, nuclear "battery".

It is the size of a house, it is a neclear reactor, (term is out of style now) that generates heat, no control rods needed, fixed spacing is used. Much smaller versions have been used for 30 years or more on satellites. It still is radioactive, zipping gamma rays in all directions in Alaska.

A nuclear reactor that is like a flashlight battery in that all the fuel it will use in its life is built-in at the factory. 10 electrical megawatts, I guess 35 MW thermal, times 50 years works out to 650 kg of fuel fissioned. If burnup is 5 percent the actual load is 13 tonnes. I see they're saying 30 years. OK, eight tonnes.

The "several" tonnes of concrete msut actually be ~5000 tonnes if it's 3 or 4 metres thick, as is likely; more on the top. The amount used will be enough that an operator and his cat standing on top will get more radiation from each other, from radiopotassium, than from the reactor below.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan

as energy carrier: real-car range, nuclear cachet

Here's an interesting review of small nukes. The 4S is about halfway into it.

Regards,

Bill Ward

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news:1136951433.561558.173310 @g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Looks like a generator to me; there's a steam cycle which presumably drives a turbine, and a generator via drive shaft. Otherwise a nuclear reactor that's almost completely passive in operation. Interesting.

--Damon

Where did you get your figures for the "zapping gamma rays""? What is their intensity relative to any natural background radiation? I am not disparaging your integrity, but this thread demonstrates the (sometimes) misinformation from both sides of the environmental issue. Much discussion, on both sides, seems to take on the character of an emotional religious debate, rather than a reasoned discussion based on logic and science. My prediction is that when people's lights start to flicker and they can't watch game shows, shitcoms, and soap operas, their objections to nuke will slowly fade. After all, even the most ardent tree huggers know that cars are dangerous and are a major source of pollutiion, but how many have foregone them completely? Non-vitriolically yours, cfe

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Only the antinuclear side can't do without it.

Who is saying they have objections? Who is saying this who doesn't have a conflict of interest? When publically funded people hear the oil money in their paycheques talking, they think it's the voice of God, or of The People.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan

as energy carrier: real-car range, nuclear cachet

The article said no moving parts.

Seems obvious the a constant stream of high energy radioactive particles simply knock loss electrons from some some conductive mass....something with lots of loose electrons in the outer shell.

Awfully dirty though.

Dang just where the hell is fusion dang gone it !!!

Isn't it about time somebody done something about that ?

All radioactive materials emit gamma rays, in pairs, all the time. With the mass they need for 50 megawatts it will take about a 2 foot of lead or 25 feet of concrete to attenuate the rays sufficently. Even then you could still measure it. That is why it is in a remote area. Ask them how do they vent the Radon Gas? or is the unit gas tight? for 30 years? You can live next to it, I want to remain cancer free. They can bury the battery too, about 60 foot down, but they still need to vent the gas products.

As a side note, "background" radiation comes from 2 sources, rocks from with in the earth, and from outer space. So living at the surface as we do, is at a region of minimum background radiation. If you go down, radiation increases, and if you go up, radiation increases.

From the site, and it has moving parts, and *liquid sodium* as a coolent, Good Luck.

The Super-Safe, Small & Simple - 4S 'nuclear battery' system is being developed by Toshiba and CRIEPI in Japan in collaboration with STAR work in USA. It uses sodium as coolant (with electromagnetic pumps) and has passive safety features, notably negative temperature and void reactivity. The whole unit would be factory-built, transported to site, installed below ground level, and would drive a steam cycle. It is capable of three decades of continuous operation without refuelling. Metallic fuel (169 pins 10mm diameter) is uranium-zirconium or U-Pu-Zr alloy enriched to less than 20%. Steady power output over the core lifetime is achieved by progressively moving upwards an annular reflector around the slender core (0.68m diameter,

2m high). After 14 years a neutron absorber at the centre of the core is removed and the reflector repeats its slow movement up the core for 16 more years. In the event of power loss the reflector falls to the bottom of the reactor vessel, slowing the reaction, and external air circulation gives decay heat removal.

Both 10 MWe and 50 MWe versions of 4S are designed to automatically maintain an outlet coolant temperature of 510°C - suitable for power generation with high temperature electrolytic hydrogen production. Plant cost is projected at US$ 2500/kW and power cost 5-7 cents/kWh for the small unit - very competitive with diesel in many locations. The design has gained considerable support in Alaska and and toward the end of 2004 the town of Galena granted initial approval for Toshiba to build a 4S reactor in that remote location. A pre-application NRC review is being sought with a view to a demonstration unit operating by 2012. Its design is sufficiently similar to PRISM - GE's modular 150 MWe liquid metal-cooled inherently-safe reactor which went part-way through US NRC approval process for it to have good prospects of licensing.

The L-4S is Pb-Bi cooled version of 4S.

Thanks for the information. Can't one build a steam-engine using the warmth inside earth, some tens or hundreds meter deep underground, for less than the price for this dangerous "battery"? Hero

Only in very select locations (e.g. Iceland). But in most areas, large scale geothermal prototype plants have been plagued with issues. Poor heat conduction into the 'well', and if using open-cycle systems, a lot of nasty contaminants come up with the heated water.

daestrom

There's often a certain size, which is most effective for a technical system. Even in animals, thinks of the relation skinsurface to volume, this holds too. A car battery is much bigger than batteries used for toys, it's using different technics.

So large scale might be in the interest of monopolist-like companies. Actually that was the secret dream of nuclear industry: establishing a monopole by delivering electricity a bit cheaper than all other sources. And the cost for innovation and for the rubbish (nuclear waste) were put on state budgets. And i still remember the names of the four profs out of the total establishment of western and eastern technology and physics, who had the courage to tell the truth about nuclearplant-safety. So the "establishment" delivered a blow to the positive image of natural science and technology, which came apparent with the real accidents happening in nuclear plants became known.

So, what about the effectivity of using earth-warmth of a depth up to ten to thirty meters depth for ordinary family-type houses?

Hero PS What i don't understand, that still people work in developing new nuclear plants - they could earn much more money in tidying up all the nuclear waste we created in the last fifty years?

No. Electricity buyers have paid a large amount of tax into a fund, supposedly for that, but it's not a big job, and government will delay letting it be done as long as possible because every year it isn't done, they can pretend it's hard, and so protect their expected future coal, oil, and gas profits.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan

as energy carrier: real-car range, nuclear cachet

On a sunny day (Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:25:56 -0500) it happened "G. R. L. Cowan" wrote in :

You are all weaklings. Thank God nuclear power is reconsidered and I just heard that our only commercial reactor in the Netherlands will now stay open until 2033 or so (it was supposed to close earlier). Radiation is actually GOOD for you, as you know sunshine is also radiation, and people go to the beach to sunbathe and it improves their health. It will make us all independent of oil, as after Iran is nuked, and the fight against the commies in South America and Russia has started, there WILL BE NO oil. And the radiation from those few nuke plants that will be left will just be nothing, a little bit background, compared to the radiation caused by WW3 nukes. Nobody needs to clean anything up, as there will be nobody to clean it up left.

If by any chance some mutants or apes make it through the next 10 years, then these will inherit a nice pre-radiated world with no more nasty bugs.

So, sing after me: *Nuclear power, it is like a flower, Good for you, It is what you should do*

I think we should all have our own personal little nuke power plant on the balcony, and RTG generators in our cars. Can be used for heating too at the same time.

Just make radiation detectors illegal or really expensive, and nobody will ever complain.

I have to disagree with on the simple basis that people have long since moved back into Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl plant is filled with thriving wildlife, all the more vibrant for the lack of human competition. If Chernobyl did not render even its immediate proximity uninhabitable, and there is no significant effects for living in two cities that were actually struck by nuclear weapons, how can your scenario be remotely credible.

So far, the only way for mankind to render any area uninhabitable is saturation bombing with anthrax.

Richard Bell included:

Oops.

A valid point ...

A very invalid point that casts the rest into doubt. Those bombs produced about a pound of fission fragments each, little enough that fallout made effectively no contribution to the damage.. A nuclear power station makes as much fission fragment mass every four hours.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan

as energy carrier: real-car range, nuclear cachet

Wrong!

Nothing will happen all the time the idiots have Einstein's relativity up their arse.

Says the person who takes after characters in children's books.