My Own Private Nuclear Power Plant
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A remote town in Africa, an automobile manufacturing plant and the Smith family next door are among the entities that may soon be able to join the United States, Japan and France on the list of those who have a nuclear power plant.
An American company, Hyperion Power Generation, has developed the world’s first miniature nuclear power plant. Emphasis on the past tense of “develop.” These nuclear Hyperion Power Generators (or HPGs) are real! Each one is not much larger in size than a person and is designed to be buried deep underground. Conceptually an HPG is more like a really powerful battery—an HPG has no moving parts and requires no human monitoring.
Hyperion claims that the HPGs are completely safe and that there is no risk of them melting down Chernobyl-like (a claim Spot Cool Stuff isn’t in a position to evaluate despite that nuclear physics class we took in college). The first HPGs are scheduled to be installed in areas of developing countries currently without electricity. Other markets include large factories, industrial zones and even small towns in the United States and Europe. Once deployed an HPG is not designed to be opened—if an HPG needs to be refueled it is shipped back to Hyperion. If unsavory types were to open an HPG the nuclear material they would find inside would, thankfully, not be weapons grade.
Obtaining an HPG will set you back around $25 million (about €20 million), which is pretty cheap considering that a single module can power about 20,000 homes; the cost comes out to about $0.07 per kWh. Get in line for yours now—Hyperion plans to manufacture around 4,000 nuclear power modules over the next 10 years.
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December 20th, 2009at 12:54 pm(#)
How exciting this relatively old news is about the HPG. I started out my web surfing today trying to find out if the phrase “Nuclear Energy” was ottered in Copenhaegen last week. Couldn’t find one reference. I am 71 years old and will never see this wasted source of energy fully developed. But, I hope my grand children benefit from miniturized nuclear power sources for Cruise ships, barges, rail road engenes & heavy constrction equipent and so on. The good Lord gave us these resources along with brains it is up to all of us to use them wisely!
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June 29th, 2009at 7:19 pm(#)
We read every day about the poor world wide. Here we have something that could provide clean water, transportation, refridgeration of fresh food, and electricity to cook clean food and those who have the money to make it happen dismiss this possibility as, “A cheap can opener”. Saving food from spoilage for months is valuable and a can opener makes that possible.
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June 10th, 2009at 8:26 pm(#)
we’ve already started our global meltdown. it may take a few more decades, but we will see the irreversable catastophe we’ve designed. it does give alot of homes and businesses power, but i’d rather life in the stoneage if it means our human race would survive. however, it is too late for the human race, due to our blatent disrespect for our living resources. we might as well use the power now.
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March 31st, 2009at 12:48 am(#)
The disposal of nuclear waste is not a frivolous thing. Nuclear waste is capable of destroying life on earth for millenia if handled incorrectly. A half life of a million years is a bit more than a “downside”. But the earth managed quite well without humans or life for a long time so it probably, if it were sentient, would give a huge sigh of relief if we managed to wipe ourselves out. Perhaps some creatures would survive, but we would NOT be among them. And all so we can have all our little gadgets like electric can openers and toothbrushes as well as the big ones like Hummers.
Presently, there is NO absolutely certain/safe method of handling the waste. Some has been hurled into space, with people holding their breath until the launch was successfully far enough away that if anything went wrong it wouldn’t come back to haunt us. Some is buried in the hopes that the containers don’t corrode or develop leaks or be broken open by an unexpected earthquake or some such. This aside from the outside possibility of some suicidal maniac trying to access the stuff to do something that his voices told him to do.
There are other developments which do not have such a hugely catastrophic risk factor which could supply the energy needs for a sustainable society -
such as interesting work being done with acousticly generated electricity or with vortex tubes or sterling engines.(aside from work on solar wind geothermal etc.) Read up on Tesla and what he managed to do that we STILL can’t figure out. I suppose that isn’t as sexy as nuclear power.
As a species it seems we don’t wish to deny ourselves anything in the short term and to hell with the long term. Remember the Titanic? Couldn’t sink, they said. Nuclear power? Sure it’s safe. Just as safe as the Titanic was..if NOBODY ever makes an error. Care to lay odds? Oh, never mind…you won’t be alive to pay and nobody else will be alive to collect….
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Spot Cool Tech Stuff Reply:
March 31st, 2009 at 10:38 am
Pam,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments. To the extent that there are two distinct sides to these issues, Spot Cool Stuff sees and appreciates both.
I do think that, when it comes to energy issues, the key is to compare options rather than look at any one in a vacuum. And to start with the present reality of the situation. Your argument seems to be against nuclear waste in general. We agree with much of what you said. But we are where we are. The planet already has a lot of nuclear waste. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. Even if all 4,000 HPGs are deployed the amount of nuclear waste they would add to the system would be minuscule as a percentage of the total. And something has to be said for the fact that a primary goal of an HPG is to provide inexpensive electricity to people who don’t currently have it, electricity that potentially brings with it jobs, medical clinics, clean drinking water, etc. And this electricity is produced without creating greenhouse gasses which also have human life destroying capabilities.
So the question is: Do the benefits of the HPG outweigh the relatively small (we’d argue) additional amount of nuclear waste? Perhaps you don’t think so, which we’d totally understand.
I’m glad you brought up other developments in alternative energy. We promise to highlight a few of them in future Spot Cool Stuff posts.
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February 12th, 2009at 11:49 pm(#)
I think this is fantastic!, but Govt.how they can be for it if they can’t understand and recognized the simple deference between stimulus package and spending! It’s require higher intelligence, fifth grates waiting with tutorial.
Thats all Politics, what is politics?(poli, in latin mines many and tick is bloodsucker)and this creature is destroyed in human society.
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November 23rd, 2008at 1:49 pm(#)
I think this rocks, too. But there is a problem with it it is the waste. The United States does a terrible job reprocessing it. Countries like France do a better job at that, but even there nuclear waste is a problem no one has really figured out yet.
Still, every form of energy generation has its downsides. If Hyperion manages to ramp up production of these you can count on an updated post here.
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November 19th, 2008at 2:39 pm(#)
This Rocks! Why is it not frontpage news around the world?
With all wailing and gnashing about fossil fuels and looking for alternative sources why does’nt the Govt. give Hyperion $25 billion to make 400,000 of these units what a revolution.
The politicans are idiots would not know answer if it hit them in the ass.
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