Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: perihelion on August 14, 2008, 10:59:23 am
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http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Hyperion_Power_Generation_Sells_First_Transportable_Nuclear_Power_Reactor_999.html (http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Hyperion_Power_Generation_Sells_First_Transportable_Nuclear_Power_Reactor_999.html)
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/index.html (http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/index.html)
I first read about this concept a couple years ago. The idea is to build a portable (about 1.5 meters wide) fission reactor with NO moving parts. I haven't been able to find many details about this particular design, but the idea a couple years back was to use a liquid metal like either sodium or a lead-bismuth eutectic as the coolant and do away with water-based moderators altogether. The natural convection speeds up with increased temperature, so the reactor can be designed to self-regulate without the use of pumps. The removal of moderators from the system means you will be operating in the "fast neutron" spectrum. I believe this means it can, to some extent, burn its own waste. Estimated power output is 27 MW.
One key tidbit of info I've found is that they are claiming to use uranium hydride as their fuel. Not the usual MOX or metal alloy fuel that has been tried in the past. I don't know what the implications of this new fuel configuration are. Any of you chemists / physicists have any thoughts? (I don't think we have any nuclear engineers on this board...) They are boasting that their fuel is not sufficiently refined to be of any use in a conventional nuclear weapon, though anything significantly radioactive could be used in a "dirty-bomb."
I never dreamed someone would actually try and take it to market this quickly. I nearly dismissed this as another fly-by-night, but they have actually received their first order! They are building a system for someone in Eastern Europe. Sounds too good to be true, but I haven't found the catch yet.
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Do want.
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27 Mw. Wow. You could make a kickass gaming system with that kind of power.
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Fascinating. I wonder how much one of those would run you.
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25 million it says.
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25 million according to the article.
Apparently I don't count as an average sized home though. I use 10,000 Watts just for my computers. :pimp:
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Enough is enough.
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Why they didn't use cobalt is beyond me. :drevil:
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so it should be good enough to burn up those floatilla's of deadly trash? (i always wanted to say that :rolleyes:) and convert it into energy, it beats putting wasted nappies into a tip :pimp:
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I may be stepping into the sar-chasm here, but for those who may have actually been confused, we are not talking about being able to burn conventional biological waste. We are talking about being able to "burn" transuranic waste products that result from the fission of uranium-235. Fast neutrons have a high enough energy level that they can initiate fission a significant percent of the time in isotopes that water-based thermal reactors won't. This does not mean that the resulting waste isn't going to be radioactive, but fast reactors can in principle reduce the waste to relatively short half-life isotopes. It also gets more energy out of a given mass of uranium by being able to get energy out of some of the fissile byproducts themselves.
In short, it is the kind of reactor we ought to be building, be it these new small-scale portables or the gigantic 1.5 GW variety. It is a constant source of amazement to me that we invested all the time and effort to research fast neutron reactors at the Idaho National Lab, proved that it worked freaking awesome well, and then completely failed to use anything that was learned there. Almost all of the proposed new reactors I have heard about are still going to use water-cooled thermal reactors, with all of their inherent safety problems and dependence on a fuel reprocessing cycle that is not only wasteful, but is also incredibly dirty, insecure, and flat-out dangerous.
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This is actually quite interesting thing. Could it finally be so that the nuclear power has made the breakthrough? I admit also that by first look it seemed like another invention scam, especially their website, but there seems to be stuff that is backing it up.
The guy who is the inventor of the patent is Otis Peterson. He is mentioned in here, which I deem to be a credible source:
http://pearl1.lanl.gov/external/Research/peterson_FLC.html
The system itself is described in the patent:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2004/0062340.html
I will discuss this with a friend of mine who is working in a nuclear power plant later today. It sounds pretty good, at the moment that is - almost too good to be true.
The main problem could be in the waste handling and security (self-induced, man-caused or natural problems) around the battery, and the legalisation of the area surrounding the system. How well have they taken Mr. Murphy into account with the thing?
Mika
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I heard about this technology a few months ago because A town just north of me called Galena, Alaska just bought one from Toshiba (the very same company that builds laptops and printers.) It isnt a scam, and the technology has existed for at least 50 years.