Tiny reactor

bushy...

Baby reactors : http://www.primidi.com/2005/02/06.html be good to see how these get on

piraka

Looks good.

I'll have one of them for my backyard. Saves on importing nuclear generated electricty from the UK.

Pocari Sweat

It seems a cheap and safe way of sorting out that wee villages needs for 30 years.

The Japanese firm Toshiba are world leaders in exporting small and large commericial reactors. I think they did a big nuke for Finland, and the Finnish don't mess around with quality standards.

The sodium coolant is actually fairly common in many large commercial reactors, and has never had a problem in 50 years in all the nukes using it in the UK, with older reactor designs.

At 10 US cents/ per KWhour, it is going to be a quarter the cost of diesel and with less worries about CO2 emmissions and diesel spills when being boated in via the yukon river, and the worries of ecological disasters around the yukon valley which is a very eco-sensitive area as is all of Alaska.

Its being put under ground, and they have designed into the reactor no complicated rod assemblies, just a reflector array on the edge of the reactor hull which means quite rightly, the worse case scenario means a non-critical dispersal of heat into the ground if the whole thing went pear shaped, which is about as likely as farming bananas on pluto.

Pocari Sweat

The 4S reactor unit is referred to as a battery because it does not have moving parts, and once installed, its fuel will not need to be replaced as in conventional nuclear reactors.

The reactor unit is 50 feet to 60 feet tall and 6 to 8 feet in diameter. It will be built outside of Alaska, installed in the Yukon River community, encased in several tons of concrete and not be opened during its operating life, which is now estimated at 30 years.

How sweet is this? The thing basically has the dimensions of a water tower.

Licensing will be an involved process that will take several years and substantial funding by Toshiba, Yoder said. It will also include development of a federal environmental impact statement.

"It is in the public interest to pursue the siting of a Toshiba 4S nuclear battery in Galena," the resolution said. The council further directed Yoder to "establish a process and timeline leading to evaluations, industrial partners, and financial and contractual arrangements necessary to bring the economic and environmental benefits of the 4S to Galena."

Toshiba has offered to install the reactor at Galena free of cost if the licensing is approved as a commercial demonstration of the "nuclear battery" in a remote location.

Once the technology is approved for use in the United States, Toshiba believes there will be opportunities for sales worldwide, and elsewhere in rural Alaska, according to Robert Chaney, a researcher with Science Applications International Corp.

SAIC coordinated a U.S. Department of Energy study of long-term energy supply options for Galena, including the Toshiba battery. The University of Alaska and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory worked with SAIC in the study.

The study showed the Toshiba battery can supply electricity to the community for about one-fourth of the cost of conventional diesel fuel.

Chaney said the DOE study weighed the cost benefits of nuclear against other ways of providing Galena with improved energy, including more efficient diesel generation, a small coal-fired power plant, and wind, solar and hydro-power from the nearby Yukon River.

Wind, solar and hydro-power were taken off the list as primary power sources when it was determined that site conditions in Galena did not make those options practical, Chaney told an Alaska Miners Association group in a Dec. 17 briefing on the project.

The analysis showed that, presuming the nuclear battery went into operation in 2010, by 2020 it could supply electricity to Galena for 5 to 14 cents a kilowatt hour (kWh), assuming the reactor is a gift from Toshiba and the community pays only operating costs.

In comparison, improved diesel generation could provide Galena power for 25 cents to 35 cents per kWh. Coal-fired power comes in as a serious alternative in the study, at 21 cents to 26 cents per kWh, Chaney told the mining group. A small coal-powered plant could use coal extracted from a thick coal seam about 12 miles from the community.

The nuclear option looks good even if Galena were to pay for the reactor. In that case the power costs were estimated at 15 cents to 25 cents per kWh in the study, Chaney said. Toshiba has estimated the cost of the 4S reactor at $25 million. Galena's power is now 28 cents per kWh.
Wow. Admittedly, it's only competitive with fossil fuels because the energy consumer is so difficult to reach. Still, after a few hundred of these are built efficiencies and economies of scale are bound to drive the price down.

rooferPete

Hi,

Maybe I missed it when reading the article and very impressive Pdf file what I did
not see is how the system will be disposed of in thirty years ?

I see the impressive low energy costs being displayed, maybe I'm getting old because thirty years is not a long time, surely the disposal and replacement cost of the system should be built into the price paid for the energy today ?

I think it would look more convincing if the article showed a full break down of the cost which on any appliance with a short life should IMO take replacement into consideration.

SeanW

Apparently, the company, Toshiba, is going to take the whole kit and kaboodle back to Japan after the 30 years is up: btw that 30 years is the projected lifetime of not just the battery itself, but the fuel assembly contained within: essentially what the company is providing is a total assembly of both a small reactor and all the fuel it will use over it's lieftime. The actual reactor core itself might be re-useable but that will be a matter for Toshiba.

chillywilly

i thought the thread title was "tiny tractor" , it made me laugh.......

ill get my coat:p

Pocari Sweat

Down the hall to the left.