One Phrase: NIMBY (Not in my backyard). Done with arguement.
People can’t program their DVR’s or use the turn signals in their cars, but they can run nuclear power plants? Yeah, this’ll work....
bttt
Love the idea!
Bloomberg Business Week
Energy May 20, 2010, 5:00PM EST
Small Nuclear Reactors Are Becoming Big Business
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_22/b4180020375312.htm
The race is on to develop refrigerator-size reactors that could power small towns or plants
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March 29, 2011
Singapore considers buried small nuclear reactors
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/singapore-considers-buried-small.html
New Scientist - Singapore, a tiny island country whose population would have no place to go in the event of a wide-scale evacuation, is giving buried nuclear reactors a closer look.
The thinking is that you could bury a small reactor in a shallow layer of bedrock, perhaps 30-50 meters underground. Then, if things at the plant go south for any reason, the granite will provide natural containment; simply cement in any access tunnels going down to the facility and walk away.
The idea was first floated last fall by Hooman Peimani an energy security specialist at the National University of Singapore. Countries with nuclear power typically build large-scale reactors 15 to 20 km away from heavily populated residential areas. Singapore, a country of roughly 700 square kilometers, doesn’t have a potential site even 3 km from residential areas, Peimani says.
Going underground would significantly increase the costs of any reactor. Peimani says only small reactors 30-50 megawatts in size, one-twentieth the size of conventional large-scale reactors, would be cost effective.
Dr Peimani is the head of the Energy Security Division at the National University of Singapore’s Energy Studies Institute. Last August, he presented a paper on the viability of underground nuclear reactors in Singapore at the Nuclear Power conference.
Earthquake prone areas or regions with high water tables wouldn’t work. The limitations would rule out much of Japan but wouldn’t preclude Singapore, Peimani says.
Singapore is currently dependent on natural gas imported from Indonesia and Malaysia for much of its electricity production but is building a massive liquefied natural gas terminal that would allow the country to import the fuel from anywhere in the world.
The Singapore government authorized a feasibility study for underground reactors last year without setting a timetable for completion. Peimani says recent events in Japan may help push the idea forward.
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Bloomberg
Bay Area has couple of small nuclear reactors
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/01/BU9N1IOIF6.DTL
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle April 1, 2011 04:00 AM
04/02/11
[snip]
Thirty-six “research and test” reactors are scattered throughout the United States, often on college campuses. Four are in California. They rarely draw attention except from the researchers, companies and government agencies that rely on them.
[snip]
bttt
Thorium -
Development of Tiny Thorium Reactors Could Wean the World Off Oil In Just Five Years
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/thorium-reactors-could-wean-world-oil-just-five-years
One can only speculate about what would have been the path of development of nuclear power if the government hadn’t subsidized and therefore determined what was built and how. I always imagined that investors and developers would have started small and been much more innovative. Good thing the government didn’t run the computer business. We’d be using punchcards today.
I would like one of those nuclear reactors that run subs to run my town.
Such small units would be the answer for settlements in areas like the Northwest Territories, and there’s plenty of water up there (understatement). ...also more than enough oil, which hasn’t been harvested since our WWII US Army engineer project (to get oil to Alaska in case needed against Japan).
It would also quickly make Canada and the USA much richer.