US plans portable nuclear power plants

[Zerstoren Sie]

Interesting idea... see what you think of this article. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996344

[shadow2501]

interesting....i've already heard about a japanese project "one building one reactor" (sounds dangerous with all earthquakes in japan) it should be a little dangerous especially if terrorist are able to find the whereabout of those reactors but even if they steal the plutonium they'll not make it long enough to produce weapons, so why not?

[megalomania]

Why in the hell are they building breeder reactors for crapistan and not the US?!? I don't give a fuck if some shithole 3rd world nation has power when they could build the full scale version right god damn now in the US and supply enough electrical power to launch a full scale conversion to a hydrogen economy.

Why ae they even bothering with a nuke anyway? Wouldn't they be better off with a solar power station that can produce the same amount of energy for 50 years and have no possibility of making a weapon?

There is no chance in hell they are going to allow so much as a gram of plutonium to fall into the hands of anyone but properly screened US government authorities. This must be some nieve democrats idea of creating a utopian 3rd world peoples paradise.

[tom haggen]

When you say "Hydrogen Economy" are you refering to the theorectical power plants that you x-ray spectrum laser in order to achieve nuclear fusion of a hydrogen atom?

[Marvin]

The nuclear industry is desperate to make more reactors but the civilised world (meaning people with enough money to care where they're power comes from so long as its not too expensive) doesnt want them.

Solar is unreliable and only produces power for part of the day, it also needs vast amounts of land and thousands of sun tracking mirrors easily vandalised and difficult to keep clean. Storing the energy between days is a nightmare and solutions usually depends heavily on location. Primarily though its not something the US could make and then deliver complete. No total package on delivery = less money to the US economy, anything that requires local labour is wasted potential.

Its this very odd way that the US has of 'helping' a third world country, by loaning it money at interest rates it can only just afford with a clause they can only use it to buy products from US companies.

Its happy if a country makes use of its mineral resources, but only because its the cheepest way to get the raw materials to the US. Ideally of course by licencing a mining operation to the US they have no local technology to exploit. If a country wants to make big money though by say refining its own oil and exporting that instead of crude - the US slaps massive taxes on importing refined oil to make it uneconomical for anyone to buy it. Same goes for minerals, or coffie.

While exporting raw materials to make money is a good thing, primarily it seems because it alows the countries to pay the interest on their debts, importing things like chemical fertliser isnt. The civilised countries are preventing export of fertilisers in order to 'protect' them from all the problems we've had like nitrate pollution in the rivers and algie blooms in the oceans. Strange how these things seem important only after a good meal.

While its obviously not the only country to be behaving in this way its by far the most conspicuous. This is how rich countries stay rich, and poor countries are kept poor.

Ladies and gentlemen of all races I give you the portable nuclear power plant, "Hi tech solutions to low tech problems", keeping the US nuclear manufactureing industry alive since the dawn of the new millenium and available to anyone with enough spare collateral. We'll just put a few on the tab shall we.....?

[Sarevok]

A nuclear reactor that can meet the energy needs of developing countries
This article claims the absurd; it was written by a naive person, or by a viperish liar. The US is not, nor ever was, interested in "helping third-world countries." Look at Iraq.

EDIT:

Marvin's post is excellent, but I would like to add this humble comment: Don't think this happens (rich countries exploiting poor countries) because the US is evil, because capitalism is Satan, or some bullshit like this. It is a more complex matter that can, generally speaking, be condensed on the following statement: to survive, the economy of modern society needs rich countries exploiting poor countries, and rich individuals exploiting poor individuals. There is no economy development if everybody (both individuals and countries) has an equal amount of money (exactly the necessary amount of money needed to survive).

So, this is not a flaw of Bush (he is not better nor worst than any other politician) nor of the US (not better nor worst than any other modern industrial country - they all are power-hungry organizations that exploit us until the day we die, while keeping us calm through brainwashing - AKA "propaganda" -, empty promises, and lies. Read NBK's rant "Why I HATE Work" to get an idea of how this happens). Instead, it is a failure inherent to modern society and how it works.

[tmp]

I agree with Mega on this one. The U.S. will NOT export even a gram of
plutonium ! The NRC hasn't issued a license for domestic nuclear power
plants in over 30 years ! Why would they even consider exporting one ? We
need them here ! Let's take of our own energy needs 1ST !

[Zerstoren Sie]

I figured this article would get some people going.... Hopefully this does not happen, as our energy needs are definitely much more important. These reactors could be quite useful in the U.S. in remote areas (maybe Alaska for instance) for low-maintenece energy. Conversion to a hydrogen ecomony will eventually come, hopefully sooner than later. I for one am excited about the idea of making and using my own fuel collected from alt. energy sources (wind, solar, etc. ) It will be great when we can have a hydrogen storage tank in our backyards... Oh that reminded me, has anyone checked out the BMW hydrogen cars, like the 745h??

[Corona]

No such reactors of US design are going to be sold anywhere because the Chinese would have got there first with something similar but simpler (non breeder). They have already built one.

New reactor design and the hydrogen economy... great article.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html?tw=wn_tophead_6

[megalomania]

If not nuclear, and not solar, what about running a liquid nitrogen cooled superconducting power line out to their existing grid? They should be able to maintain it, and then they would have to buy the power from some nearby supplier like Spain or Japan. I believe a famous 19th century scientist did envision a global power grid using superducting lines.

[Bugger]

The U.S.A., or at least NASA, has already made and exported (to other planets) small portable nuclear power plants. The Pioneer 9 and 10, and Voyager 1 and 2, long-distance space probes, which bypassed several planets and have since left the solar system for interstellar space and are still radioing back data, are powered by a subcritical amount of plutonium (probably Pu-239 from spent enriched-U power station rods). Its decay gives off radiation, which is degraded by the containing materials to heat, which causes a thermopile - a succession of junctions of dissimilar metals acting as thermocouples - to generate electricity. Sunlight as the distances from the Sun at which they operate is too faint for solar cells to generate sufficient electricity.

Bugger.

[Bugger]

Besides, the U.S. and Russian Navy's fleets of nuclear-powered warships, aircraft carriers, and submarines, use portable nuclear power stations for their propulsion and power. These are mostly steam-turbine power stations, using either Pu-239 or 235-enriched U. They are especially useful in submarines, which for propulsion underwater while completely submerged cannot use conventional diesel engines which require air for combustion. (Conventional submarines run on lead-acid batteries while completely submerged, these batteries having to be periodically recharged using a diesel-powered generator when the sub is on the surface or extends a "snorkel" airpipe and exhaust upward from just below the surface).

Bugger.