Drudge had a link to this story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

great concept, but the enviro nazis and the dhimmicrat controlled congress, both of which are dedicated to destroying America's economy, will never let this see the light of day.

I don't understand how France,China & others can safely make new plants & we can't?

because they do not have a hoard of enviro nazis blocking everything, and their government is in favor of nuke power.
Can't be any simpler than that.

France also relies on standard reactor designs. Every US reactor is a one off.

In the UK, disposal of the waste is the major stumbling block. Unlike the US, China, Canada ect, we don't have any true wilderness or uninhabited areas where waste could be stored well away from people.

As our present generation of nuclear reactors come to the end of their working lives, its become apparent the cost of decommissioning them is far more expensive than building them and all these costs need to be factored into where they are viable or not..These additional costs include the search for a long term storage site.

The best idea so far is a deep subterranean undersea depository, but no one is really sure about all the potential problems especially for the relatively small proportion of very highly radioactive wastes as this tends to "erode" most times of container over time..

BTW, the Russians have had miniature nuclear reactor in service for years and they are often used to power remote/isolated military/government installations such as unmanned weather or radar sites...

Regards,

Peter

China and safe reactors may be like saying Russia and safe reactors. Don't ever depend on safety in a culture that centers around bribes.

But Europe has a good history, and we have a good history. But don't worry, the high prices you pay now will help usher in new alternative energy sources. It's a Patriotic thing to pay more for energy!

They can't. I have worked in the electrical power industry for over 40 years & everyone I know predicted an energy shortage when Congress prohibited new nuclear reactors for power generation. Guess when most of the hardware is being manufactured? Japan, Germany, & France are the leaders. GE & Westinghouse long ago shut down & sold off these businesses.

I was wondering just how big physically the reactors are on an aircraft carrier or sub?

These seem to be a fairly well understood technology, but I have no idea how similar the design is to land based reactors...

They are similar size to those discussed in the article. The technology is very similar to the existing land based reactors, in fact the Navy pioneered pressurized water reactors. The new small reactor designs are more evolutionary, for various reasons, mostly reasons of simplicity and passive safety features. But there's no TECHNICAL reasons they can't be licensed in the US.

Disposal of waste is (or would be) fairly simple, safe and absolutely permanent. You need only drop the shipping containers into a deep-sea subduction zone where a continental plate is diving under another (such as off Chile or even California). The containers would ride the plate right down into the earth's mantle and eventually melt back to where they came from: the Earth's interior.

It's called recycling.

No technical reasons, ask any enviro nut why they are against nuke power. The first thing they will bring up are chernoble and three mile island and that will be the end of the discussion. Trust me been there and done that. They have built in blinders to anything that makes sense.

That's outstanding news. And the fact that it ecomically harms those Middle Eastern tyrants doesn't bother me one bit.

As a retired scientist, I am constantly amazed at the ignorance surrounding nuclear plants. As a matter of fact, MOST people have been poisoned by the enviro-nazis to the point where they believe just being exposed to radiation causes an object to be radioactive and emit dangerous emissions. Gonna take a lot of good education to overcome our ignorance, and the liberals are not about to let truth conquer false indoctrination.

Wayne

You're right, Wayne. Those are same people who believe we're "spending money in space" and that people are making the Earth warmer. They also think hunting is evil, eating meat is worse and that if we just Nature take its course, everything would be nirvana.

Uh huh.

I would be more worried about security with many reactors scattered about. The article says they are buried but I wonder how long it would take to get to one of them with a backhoe or a drilling rig.

I am for nuclear power but I think I would prefer a big central( and well secured) plants.

It's an old idea from the '50s and well understood, and can use some isotopes extracted during conventional fuel reprocessing - waste. May (or may not) be a good idea but likely politically dead, in this country at least. Think of, "Dozens of trucks hauling highly radioactive nuclear waste through our cities and burying it in our neighborhoods." Actually one of the better fuels seems to be an isotope of plutonium (not suitable for weapons IIRC) and that word kills the deal right there.

Pity.

Small plants will require security as well, just not as many people probably. If they require a similar size force to a baseload plant, any economical feasibility probably goes away.

A backhoe or drilling rig has no chance of penetrating even the small plants. We're still talking reinforced concrete structures here. You'd need some heavy lifting equipment, and a good bit of time, to get at the reactors. Assuming you do, which is an awful big assumption, then what you have is non-proliferation grade fuel, so you really didn't accomplish much.

If & when licenses are ever issued & law suites dismissed the electric utilities will build large plants. Its far more economical with the step up transformers & other generation equipment required. A small underground nuclear reactor for power gen. may make sense for those few cities in remote areas of the US.

Most of the small plants will be built outside of the US, but the builders (and potential buyers) want the plants licensed in the US first as that establishes a pedigree that is the gold standard around the world.

Remote communities will be a smaller market that remote mining, petrochemical, and desalination facilities.

Not so sure tbear, it's a nightmare getting transmission lines approved much less built. Otter Tail II (coal fired, second plant in the same location) is pretty much good to build except Minnesota is holding up approval of transmission facilities needed to get the electrons to market. Environmentalists, don't ya know, pushing wind (in more ways than one). The planned transmission lines were designed with extra capacity for wind generation but they want it all. They're basing their case on CO2 "pollution" and getting more than a little traction.

The time of the large centralized nuke plant has passed. The US plants are dinosaurs and even the newer generation European plants will not be replaced with similar facilities when they are decommissioned.

The package-type nuke plants are either Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR - "lifter") or Pebble Bed Reactors. The US is largely pursuing the former and the Euros the latter. LFTR plants are more efficient and more complicated than PBRs. Both types are very safe and produce a lot of power for the dollar.

I don't like conventional nuclear power for lots of reasons, but LFTR and PBR technology is tremendously promising.

I was more worried that some one would dig down breach what ever containment the unit has and scatter the radioactive material with an explosive or fire causing a very messy and expensive situation.

Pete,

Store it in Brighton...If it leeks, it would just make bizaare folks even more bizarre...

Nothing is impossible, but that would be very time-consuming, such that help would have a lot of time to respond. And even if they succeeded, they've managed to set off a "dirty bomb" out in the boonies, bad if you live close, but not quite a statement like setting one off in Times Square, so my guess is it's not that attractive target.

Your scenario involving a conventional Light Water Reactor (LWR) is a huge problem. If a breach occurs in a LWR, superheated radioactive cooling water is released to the atmosphere as steam.

The operating theory of the new generation Pebble Bed Reactor (PBR) largely defuses that scenario. A PBR is gas-cooled with helium. Helium is much more inert than water so even a direct release of the gas contacting the core is a minor event. The reaction in the core itself is based on the proximity of the pebbles to one another, a pile of them together is what starts and sustains the reaction, so if the pebbles are scattered the reaction stops.