Would you power your home with nuclear energy?

I have been an advocate for small nuclear-powered generators for years. Additionally, the heat generated could be used for heating in winter via heat exchangers. How many tons of spent nuclear waste from commercial power companies are we storing now?

In a heartbeat! Nuclear energy is a comparatively clean energy source. I could also plant my garden right over it. Maybe I’d win the state fair with my chicken-headed 5,000 lb mutant vegies! (Just kidding.) People are usually afraid of what they don’t understand. A distributed power generation scheme is in my opinion the way to go in the future. Homeowners should be responsible for their own power generation as well as usage. When they get a nuke that puts out for a single home I’ll definitely sign up!

I already “power my house with nuclear energy” as my local power utility uses a conventional large-scale nuclear power generating plant. I don’t think I’d want a small nuke in my backyard, though.

Can I get one now? If France uses nuclear power how bad can it be?

Absolutely! And I wouldn’t mind storing the spent fuel waste in my backyard, if I could afford to build the underground vault.

Define “ten cents per watt”.

For “20,000 standard American homes” consuming, let’s say, 2 kW on average, that’s 40 mW. So they could be powered by a plant costing $4 million? Such a deal!

I think maybe ten cents per kilowwatt-hour?

Yes I would power my house with a small reactor; but don’t look for me to buy an early model, and good luck getting a permit esp. in Mass. where we can’t even get Cape Wind permitted.

Of course, assuming that the NRC certifies the reactor (as it must) and that the Environmental Impact Assessment is satisfactory.

Yes, I love the decentralization of power grids! reducing effects of failures and damage to small, local only grids wopuld have great benifits and the long distances current (pun intended) power grids opperate are inefficient anyway. My design for the future entry cited decentralized power grids so I of course like this idea. This isn’t really a nuke buried in my backyard proposal anyway, more simular to a local substation. The concern would be having hundreds and even thousands of these around, the instance of a failure or intentional or unintentional damage and security would arise, but if the product could be as safe and reliable as other methods of power generation and be that cheap, I’m in. I’ll guess this system would run as most generators do, at a constant rate, so really sell it, have it produce hydrogen when generating more power than the grid uses and let the locals fill their future hydrogen internal combustion or fuel cell cars for free!

I have always thought nuclear power is save and efficient and if it could wean us off foreign oil, I’m all for it.

The “hottub” sized power plant would need to be about 15-20 megawatts to handle the 20,000 home load. If they were synced to the grid and coupled to solar and wind generation, the time before re-fueling could be extended. Now if you could just plug in the soon to be released Chevy Volt our energy needs could be howmegrown.
Don’t forget - about 40% of each barrel of oil is not used for fuel but it’s used for chemicals and plastics. But a 50% reduction in imported oil would really help keep US dollars at Home.

I Vote Yes

Heck Yes!!! The military has dozens of mini reactors powering their boats with minimal problems for years. Where do I sign up?

Yes, I do think the $0.04 per watt is not right. $4 mil per small town would be a hard sell. Sink into the ground by the local sewage plant and no loss of land value.

Yes, nuclear power is clean and safe. We have oil and gas lines buried underground all over this country, a reactor is probably safer than those buried lines.

I realize we are not a big user of electricity, but mountain sites not accessible to the power grid for powering radio transmitters could benefit from this as now they are limited to solar/stored fuel generators now. At home, there are other means of energy savings that would yield cheaper energy. In particular, my trailer sits on a septic tank that would yield enough methane to run my existing furnace and water heater through the early winter and spring months. Insulation still would be the most cost effective savings. And If I could get permission a wind turbine could easily charge a battery powered truck and during the day run a few appliances.

Nice idea, but there soon may be no need for an expensive, meterable and possibly unsafe energy source. Our current energy pardigm is now ripe for change!

If our (USA) current political climate and public attitude change (as it now might); within a very short time there will be ample, very cheap, known safe, green alternatives available. Many have already passed the engineering development and prototype stage and simply await deregulation, mass acceptance, and production.

Also; many of these devices solve the energy problem from a decentralized approach for individual households. However large business and industry will likely still require the grid for some time to come.

For example, a one-time purchase of a “3 Ton HVAC” size, or smaller, power generation appliance will provide all single household energy needs, including single vehicle transportion.

Many of these schemes cost little or nothing to operate, are easily installed and require only nominal maintenance. Plus, in many cases their payback is calculated in months with little or no recurring expense.

Yes. With solar panels on the roof aready, a NP source in the back yard, now where is the affordable plug-in electric car?

This is a chance for any kind of future.

I agree; let’s start another important drive for our future!!!

Bury Here! Bury Now! Pay Less!

The ability to localize power distribution would be a big improvement to our national security. The distribution of power generation would eliminate the possibility of terrorists taking out our entire power grid by hitting a few key locations.

I live near the coast and hurricanes cause areas to loose power than didn’t even get any wind or water damage. This would eliminate that problem. However, the giant power companies will fight this idea unless they are able to keep control of the new smaller distribution networks.

The question that needs to be addressed is the full cost of the power from these or other nuclear power plants. I am sure the 10 c/kWh figure is based upon first cost and some maintenance cost. Usually there is no accounting for de-commissioning cost, the security to guard the reactor, and most importantly no costing of the waste handling during is hottest phases over 250,000 years.

The present nuclear industry is founded upon neglecting these costs. Of course that is dishonest, but hey this is America where lies are cheap. The costs of nuclear power grow more than double when these costs are properly reflected. No wonder they are not included, it spells the death knoll of this interesting but uneconomical technology. It is far better to fund renewables with their costs in some cases comparable to the dishonest 10 c/kWh adanced here.

Absolutely! While these small reactors would provide more than enough power for a single home, this is a perfectly safe way to provide power to small remote communities.

That more than 90% of the respondents voted in favor of backyard reactors comes as no surprise given the scientific and engineering community that we are.

Sadly, the modern-day Luddites have the ability to squelch innovation with very little effort. To complicate matters even further today’s media is driven to expand circulation by fanning hysteria even furthers.

Back in 1989, when the Alair apple scare was at it’s worst, there were mothers who were afraid of pouring apple juice down the sink for fear of causing another Love Canal!

The American public’s ignorance of things technical makes them vulnerable to manipulation and the Environmental “True Believers” make the best of it.

Try this survey in a non-technical community and the results will likely be vastly different

That more than 90% of the respondents voted in favor of backyard reactors comes as no surprise given the scientific and engineering community that we are.

Sadly, the modern-day Luddites have the ability to squelch innovation with very little effort. To complicate matters even further today’s media is driven to expand circulation by fanning hysteria even further.

Back in 1989, when the Alair apple scare was at it’s worst, there were mothers who were afraid of pouring apple juice down the sink for fear of causing another Love Canal!

The American public’s ignorance of things technical makes them vulnerable to manipulation and the Environmental “True Believers” make the best of it.

Try this survey in a non-technical community and the results will likely be vastly different.

As for me, I’ll gladly grant an easement on my property for any utility who wants to install a residential community
sized nuclear reactor.

I would rather face the very small threat of a nuclear mishap, which in a well maintained and secure system is extremely rare to the point of a non issue, than pour money into energy companies that sponsor much more significant threats to America. Now if we could have a domestic source of renewable energy than none of this would even be an issue.

Hey Dave,

Please say hello to Al Gore & Dr. James Hansen.

Can you provide some facts to support these claims?

“within a very short time there will be ample, very cheap, known safe, green alternatives available. “

You betcha! I would sign up in a NY millisecond. All the fear of nuclear energy is simple, technological illiteracy - 3-mile island/Hollywood, liberal propaganda. After over half a century of nuclear powered naval vessels, it is illogical to think the “glowing bugs” haven’t been worked out.

And as far as nervous Nellies about nuclear waste … do a wiki-search on PUREX (no; not the laundry detergent.)

As long as the utility has cradle to grave responsibility for the nuclear fuel and waste, yes, I am for it. This is a much more reasonable solution than building more large scale power plants to provide electricity. I think the fear of this technology will have to be overcome before it happens.

It would be nice to also have a safe and secure portable unit to power my dughter’s DVD player on those long-haul drives, not too mention respectable vehicle mileage.

Nuclear power has proven to be safely used. Look at the French (if we have to) who have used it for years. Look at the US Navy that has used it for 50 years without the problem. Small reators are more manageable than larger ones. Over time the price will come down.

Recycling the waste by putting it in breeder reactors to make it useable again is a viable alternative to just storing it. Focusing on development of that technology needs to be pursued.

And as mentioned above, in colder climates use the excess heat to heat homes and process heat for factories. But, this has to be a part of a bigger plan using all technologies to be more energy dependant.

The final issue is to not let eco-extremists control the discussion. Letting the public know the real story, not some narrowing defined remote possiblity dicate the discussion.

It is naive to think that these mini-reactors will all be properly sited (away from fault zones, or sources of drinking water, for example) and guarded 24/7 like normal commercial reactors. So what happens when a casing somewhere inevitably is broken and poisons drinking water? Further, it appears the unit must be dug up from it’s deep haven every five years and the radioactive material removed and transported for disposal, yielding still more vulnerabilities.

As many have said, nuclear power is safe. I take issue with the “softball-sized amount of recyclable waste” because Jimmy Carter made it more or less illegal to do recycling. I’d put one in my backyard as well if the recycle issue was solved.

Yes, I would have one in my back yard provided the waste was take care of and I could sell the excess power to the power company.

The 10 cents must be a typo; the Hyperion site, http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com lists a 70 MWt unit for $25M, resulting in 25 MWe with a steam turbine generator set, or $1 per watt electrical before adding the cost of a steam generator, turbine and alternator set. Still at $0.023 per KWH capital cost over their quoted 5 year service life this may make sense for some applications.

They should standardize a design and mass produce them. Size them about the same as used in recently built Navy subs and make each one impervious to external influences such as earthquakes, and distribute them around the country. They would not require new transmission lines built at great expense, a current drawback to the large wind farms that are being developed and planned.

“Would you power your home using nuclear power?” : well, we already do….10 to 12% of the grid is supplied by Nuclear. Some areas (of the US) the fraction is higher during low demand periods.
If you live in Europe, the fraction is much higher….

The smaller nuclear reactor module would make enormous sense. With the downsized distribution grid requirements factored in, the final cost would be a salvation. The “ten cents a watt” price quoted is rather vague, however it would be interesting to see the installed equipment cost, and the proposed cost per KWH. For lack of a maintainable grid in west-central Texas, we see hundreds of “ready” turbines feathered in the natural high winds. I suspect the financial gain for placement of the fans must far exceed the gain for the installed grid! For shame! A dollar waiting on a dime!
Bring on the baby-nuke…

ABSOLUTELY! Every day of the week and twice on Sunday! A small power source like that has so many potential uses, it’s not even funny. There’s a bunch of technology I can think of right now that is held back solely because a compact high-power source is not available, and a RTG simply won’t cut it. A Hyperion Power Module would appear to be the perfect solution!

Sounds good, but… 10 cents per watt doesn’t mean anything. Did you mean 10 cents per watt-hour? If so, that would mean running a 75 watt light bulb for an hour would cost you $7.50. Not too good.

It sounds like a good idea. I live within a couple of miles of a nuclear plant already. I pay nearly 18¢ per kwh now but I cannot figure how to compare that to 10¢ per watt!

“Powered by low-enriched uranium fuel, each Hyperion Power Module will reportedly produce enough clean, safe, and environmentally friendly energy to reliably power 20,000 standard American homes for 10 cents per watt. “

70% of power generatad by remote plants is consumed in transmission, so this cost whould be avoide.

(1) Approximately 17 % of the nation’s electrical power comes from Nuclear Power Plants, which means that about 30 % of the nation’s homes are powered by nuclear-generated electricity in whole or in-part.
(2) The cost of power from the SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT, in Brazoria County, Texas, to the cities of AUSTIN, TX and SAN ANTONIO, TX, is about 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. I don’t know what the ratepayers in those cities pay.
(3) Lossses in transmission of electric power from Bonneville Dam to Los Angeles, CA, is about 10 % via 500 kV AC lines and about 7% via a DC line from Bonneville Dam to Sylmar, CA. The lines transmit south in Summer and, oftentimes, north in Winter.
(4) The cities of AUSTIN, TX and SAN ANTONIO, TX (along with an Investor- Owned Utility) are planning to build a second unit alongside the South Texas Project No. 1, because of the more or less-fixed, low cost of power from these plants. South Texas Project No.2 will certainly deliver power at more than 5 cents per kW-hr, but probably at less cost than coal and natural gas-fueled plants.
(5) Alternatives (as solar and wind) require “backup” with “spinning reserve” power plants, ready to start generating power whenever the sun sets (or cloud cover decreases) solar output or the wind does not blow sufficiently or at all. Further, this “spinning reserve” must be factored into the cost for wind and solar, which are very expensive already.
(6) Geothermal, the economically-viable resource for which is really very limited, is actually a depletable resource (more like oil and gas) and depends upon the same reservoir dynamics as do oil and gas. Further, geothermal generation is generally low in efficiency (aabout 15 - 20 %) as the resource (steam, hot water, etc.) is generally of low temperature (about 300 - 400 DegF).

On a large scale, I believe we should develop a standardized nuclear power plant. Mass-produce them in locations that are close to long-term storage sites. Include breeder reactors to transmute waste elements into minimum residual products.
On a small scale, I think the implantable unit described in this week’s question would be excellent! Yes, my back yard is available.

I am fortunate to have an uncle-in-law that a decade ago worked on the initial “backyard nuclear plant” as well as having written the specs for the Apollo spacecraft and the Polaris Missel. One day on his way back from a visit to our local nuclear plant, he showed me that his safety badge was getting more “nuclear” from the sun than it was getting earlier at the plant. When I made the mistake of asking him about the potential of putting the waste in concrete containers in the middle of the ocean, his reaction shocked me. He didn’t want to lose an ounce of the “waste”. “Waste” is the press’s negative term. They are very close to the solutions that will allow it to generate power while reducing the “waste”. I am an innovator in construction including PV. He, and a compatriot asked me to lead their study of feasibility of using the PV principles to use the loose particles of nuclear “waste” to generate electricity. Initial studies are showing strong promise.

If you cross the Midwest you pass through small town after small town with maybe 20 to 40 miles or so between them. It makes much more sense to me and apparently about 90% of everyone else to have each of these communities on it own grid. I know they are saying 20,000 homes but that is homes of today. As we become more electrified that number will most likely drop to around 12,000 to 15,000 homes and with mass production I’m sure that the cost can drop closer to 1 to 2 cent per kilowatt

Our kids need this and other planet saving sources of energy. I truly do not want to leave my son a planet that can’t be fixed. We can do this and we can do this now. The alternative is far to frightening to not think about.

I had the good fortune to know as frienc and discuss Nuclear Power with the French Physicist that turned on their first reactor, he also did consultant work on Chernoble. They vitrify the waste after reprocessing, and it seems naive when All smoke alarms contain a small amount of radioactive material to be concerned about a sealed small power unit. United States Must build nuclear power plants, Electrical power is necessary for clean energy, rapid transportation, electric cars and air conditioning. The manufacturing process requires electrical power for automation and it’s the only way to beat the Chinese population power. Oh don’t worry we will sell or give the world this
technology. I have seen video tape, plastic molding and aircraft manufacturing given to the Japanese or Chinese. We now outsource technical support to India, Phillipines and Canada. Can we outsource energy?

The energy density of 20 to 40mW in a size of a hot tub is a concern, but not a show stopper. To make this work the following must be true:

1. Fail-safe design, if anything at all goes wrong it shuts down (at that energy density an explosion is a real concern even if it is not nuclear)
2. Recyclable waste, this means that there should be no residual high grade waste with long half life (they should be less than 1 year max)
3. Safe and stable supply chain (no materials form single sources particularly from unstable countries)
4. If it is damaged (dropped from a truck etc) there should be zero possibility for contamination.

I am old enough to have seen injury from fallout. It is hideous and no one sees it coming. The pain is indescribable, the deformities monstrous and there is NO cure. Any move forward in this area HAS to address these questions first. There are hundreds of square kilometers in the Soviet Union that to this day are uninhabitable due to an accident that occurred in the 1950’s. The fact that this happens rarely does not make it ok. Cheap power seems quite expensive after only one of these. So far we have been VERY lucky. I am not sure if our luck will last, nuclear accidents will eventually happen, no matter how much we hope not, entropy is the law.

I am not saying we should not do the proposal. However, we should not allow external factors such as corporate profit, expedience or special interests take something like this and run. It would be wonderful to have a tiny plant not too far away making energy in a similar way nuclear subs to that now, but without the high grade waste issues.

In the meantime we need to put solar on every solar friendly roof and develop energy storage methods. These are dangerous as well (anytime you store energy in a small space bad things can happen) so here we also need to move cautiously. We need to do all of this now because every day we burn fossil fuels we come one day closer to an atmosphere rich in CO2 that the earth has not seen for several billion years, an experiment I am not interested in being part of.

No easy answers, a lot of hard work ahead so lets get going.

Community sized nuclear power generators are an excellent idea with several benefits. Wide area blackouts would be a thing of the past, ageing transmission systems would not need to be rebuilt. Communities could indeed become their own grid with capability to parallel with neighboring communities during maintenance or refueling activities. Also, there would be no large attractive targets on which terrorists could focus. It would also eliminate the outrageous capital cost of today’s large nuclear generating stations. Please put one in by back yard.

Having taken courses in Nuclear Engineering, earned a PhD in Physics but never acted in a movie, my opinion doesn’t count. By the way I’ve spent my whole career in electronics and communication so I have a real monetary interest in the nuclear power industry - in a pig’s eye.

It would be a great idea but it has to compete economically. If as the article states it would cost 10 cents per watt and not kW then it is more than 1000 times more expensive than most people pay now. Not many people would go for that.

If it is $.10 per Kw, I’d not only power my home, but everything else I could plug into it…car, bike, boat. 350ppm is an easily acceptable maximum density for Carbon Dioxide levels in our atmosphere. I’ve heard a lot of discussion / denial about the cause of rising levels, but the arguments are inane. The levels are unquestionably rising and we can do something about that. This could be a good solution if it is indeed relatively safe.

I would happily support local Nuclear generation.
The public fear of living near a Nuclear Power Station, sadly created by the Media in the UK, is misguided. Actually if you look at the location of the Nuclear generators operating in the UK at present none of us living here are more than a few tens of miles at most from a reactor. Also another few miles across the Channel there are the French ones so effectively we are all living near one.
From a commercial profit making point of view the virtual elimination of transmission losses and the necessity to keep and maintain the very vulnerable national grid systems and very high voltage sub stations would dissapear. Lower voltage multipoint interconnection between generators for load sharing would be much cheaper to maintain plus other savings that would flow from such a system should make the whole concept very profiable and attractive to the vested interests that run our countries. Hopefully they would then use their power and influence to promote and introduce such a system.
However unless the proposed cost per watt (10c) is a typographical error and should read 10c per kwh I do not think there would be many interested customers when the inevitable marketing survey is conducted and the whole idea would dissapear.

Great Idea, This is also a terrific way to use the energy left in the spent fuel that is proposed to be stored in the Yucca Mountain, Nevada project.
It’s time we did something that makes good sense and get away from all the idiotic inhibitions of the environmentalists and other groups that only muddle up good engineering based upon excellent scientific research and successful experiences. The more this concept is developed, the quicker the costs for power will come down. HOORAY!

Hey James,

Off Topic - sorry group; but to answer James;

The list of methods and references is too long to present here. Please see:

hxxp://www.free-energy.110mb.com/ (change the xx to tt in hxxp)

We’ve reproduced a variety of the “hydrogen on demand” schemes and, what I call the “Pseudo Nuclear Battery” found there, using very modest resources with excellent preliminary results. I know many others have as well.

Heck, if a few old buzzard engineers can make this stuff work, I recon a trained monkey could do it! :o)

BTW, Al isn’t talking to us “non Nobel Prize, non Movie Star” types lately…

Once we get started for real, I figure solving this energy thing is going to be even more fun than going to the Moon! Makes good stories you can tell the kids as well.

Small scale nuclear makes most sense as part of a comprehensive energy plan. It is likely that there are just as many non-ideal locations for these reactors as there are ideal. Wind, solar, geotheramal, and nuclear must be explored and implemented with great care.

I’ve always wanted to make the point that nuclear generation is not an issue, nuclear engineering is.
The Nuclear Submarine’s power plant did not scale for big stationary power plants. May be this is appropriately engineered.

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