Posted on 06/30/2009 11:07:55 AM PDT by SolidWood
Both projects involve small reactors that would be buried underground and operate for many years without the need for refueling.
Toshibas reactor, dubbed the 4S for Super-Safe, Small and Simple, is designed to produce 10 megawatts of electricity for 30 years without refueling. It would be cooled by liquid metal. (Toshiba is also developing a 50MW version.)
Hyperion is promising a reactor that can produce 25MW for five to 10 years and uses uranium hydride as a combination fuel and temperature-moderator.
Alaskas governor supports the concept.
Absolutely I can see nuclear playing a role in our energy agenda, Gov. Sarah Palin wrote in an e-mail message last week. Small-scale nuclear is an exciting prospect and fits with development of our more conventional sources of non-renewables.
Nuclear obviously plays an important energy role in our country, Ms. Palin added. I support it, and now it will be interesting to hear what locally affected Alaskans say about the prospects in our state.
(Excerpt) Read more at greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com ...
This gives 0% carbon to the earth’s atmosphere.
Why not do it??
I think this thing is (@(@$^&) awesome! Think about banks of these rather than huge soot-spewing stacks of coal plants!
Too bad Toshiba is on my Boycott Forever list...
Alaska is getting real energy solutions and the lower 49 are still tilting at windmills.
Some sort of lesson or parable going on here.
I didn’t see it in the article...I thought it might be pebble bed technology, but it doesn’t look like it.
We should definitely go nuclear.
Coal plants don't spew soot anymore.
It looks like a Toshiba 4S is being installed in Galena, Alaska.
No reason not to. But 0bama, democrats, and environmentalists will never allow it to happen.
At today’s rates 10MW x 30 years is about $400,000,000.00 in electricity. (please check my math)
I would bet it is cheaper than anything else out there even after you decommission it.
Palin PING!
Anyone on or off the Palin ping, write me.
Keep telling yourself that bro. Less than a year ago I was working at Southern Company’s Alabama plant. There were piles upon piles of black dust on the cable trays, the electrical equipment, up in the eaves, EVERYWHERE. Something tells me that wasn’t before they put in electrostatic scrubbers. Children that live near coal plants have something along the lines of 300-400% the typical rate of asthma and breathing-related illnesses. I know that 70% of a coal plant construction cost is emissions control, but it doesn’t look like that is enough.
I’m not a nuclear physicist or reactor engineer, and I have never played one on television, and I don’t remember where I slept last night.
While fusion technology has not moved forward as briskly as I thought it might, say, 20 years ago, I think the barriers to much better fission designs and implementations have been social and political rather than technical and economic.
I would love it if Alaska started siting nukes all over the place. It would just be another example of how Sarah Palin is getting it done while everybody in the lower 48 does nothing but whine and wring their hands.
Reason Democraps give - "We don't want anything that actually works."
Am I right in supposing this size reactor is something like a nuclear sub or aircraft carrier might operate?
"Bro" what you saw was coal dust from the mills not particulate from the stack.
" Children that live near coal plants have something along the lines of 300-400% the typical rate of asthma and breathing-related illnesses."
Source????
"I know that 70% of a coal plant construction cost is emissions control, but it doesnt look like that is enough."
70%... Where did you pull that number from?
I think this Toshiba mini-reactor is well suited for remote areas like Alaska. While counter-intuitive, there are also a number of geothermal energy projects on the horizon in Alaska, especially with the binary turbine design that allows for operation at lower geothermal temperatures. Governor Palin has been a true leader in energy production innovations.
According to Wikipedia (?) they say that Toshiba is installing this reactor in Galena free of charge. I suppose they are hoping to use this as a success story for future marketing.
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