Rusted Sky

Now this is something I'd like to see become commercially feasible.

Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.

Political feasibility, however, is something else. I'm quite sure that the environmentalists would go ballistic over the possibility of neighborhoods getting their own reactor. And we won't even talk about the hysterics the anti-nuke folks will have over installations of this. What about the waste? What about the nuclear proliferation problems? What about (fill in the blank)?

Not that they'd accept any answers other than a sage "Yes, you're right - we should go back to the majority of people living a 18th century lifestyle and leave that wierd stuff called electricity to our betters - and only accept THAT if it comes from hideously expensive solar cells or properly sited (and non-bird lethal) windmills..."

We need something different in regards to dense, high-intensity power. You don't get a high-tech civilization without having a clean, easily portable or accessable energy souce - steampunk notwithstanding... - and there's not much out there BUT electricity that's viable in the near future.

(And please, no Tesla wireless power references. After having looked over his work, IF he did have something wreless going that wasn't the equivalent of having a neon tube near a high-voltage coil he didn't leave any workable clues to it. Besides - the electricity he was transmitting had to come from somewhere.)

So we have to look at what's going to produce that electricity. I'd have loved to see Google get into the power business with the Polywell reactor tests, but they apparently didn't see the idea as being worth investing the time or money. (Considering how much power Google must be using, you'd think they'd be eager for it.) But others are looking at it, including the Navy. We'll see.

Re nuclear - we can solving the engineering problems. The sociological problems, however... that'll take a lot longer.

J.