{"id":491,"date":"2010-01-12T01:16:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T06:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=491"},"modified":"2010-01-12T01:21:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T06:21:54","slug":"small-nuclear-reactors-an-alternative-energy-possibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=491","title":{"rendered":"Small Nuclear Reactors &#8211; An Alternative Energy Possibility?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by Chris Morrison, B-NET, November 19, 2009<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/smallreactors.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px\" title=\"small reactors\" border=\"0\" alt=\"small reactors\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/smallreactors_thumb.jpg\" width=\"216\" height=\"159\" \/><\/a> James Lovelock<\/strong>, a prominent British scientist, <a id=\"xxl2\" title=\"wrote in 2004\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ecolo.org\/media\/articles\/articles.in.english\/love-indep-24-05-04.htm\">wrote in 2004<\/a> that \u201ccivilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear\u201d. <strong>Lindsey Graham<\/strong>, the breakaway Republican senator who advocated carbon controls, is <a id=\"wipy\" title=\"advocating a strong push toward nuclear power\" href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20091117\/pl_afp\/climatewarminguspoliticsnuclearenergy_20091117235706\">pushing hard for nuclear power<\/a>. Wherever one looks, there\u2019s new support and excitement for nuclear plants. But using what technology?<\/p>\n<p>Nuclear science atrophied in the latter part of the 20th century due to environmental lobbying. That meant the U.S. became stuck with its second \u201cgeneration\u201d of reactors and left a few other countries, mainly France and Japan, working in the third generation. Now there\u2019s signs of a breakaway dash to a fourth generation, as well as some unconventional ideas.<\/p>\n<p>One is small, modular nuclear plants. Under development at the <strong>Idaho National Laboratory<\/strong>, these reactors would produce 25 to 70 megawatts of energy, depending on whether you want electricity or heat; enough for a small town, large factory or oil field (the latter two might use it for steam). They\u2019re designed to be safe and cheap, with electricity coming out just slightly more expensive than a coal plant.<\/p>\n<p>The <a id=\"c1vc\" title=\"NYTimes covers these briefly\" href=\"http:\/\/greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com\/2009\/11\/16\/a-new-reactor-concept-inches-forward\/\">NYTimes covers small nuclear reactors briefly<\/a> without mentioning the name of the company getting ready to start prototyping, <strong>Hyperion Generation<\/strong>. Next Big Future <a id=\"ua75\" title=\"does a better job\" href=\"http:\/\/nextbigfuture.com\/2009\/11\/hyperion-power-generation-reactor.html\">does a better job<\/a>, or you can head over to the <a id=\"a1mx\" title=\"just-released eight page \/ 18 slide summary\" href=\"http:\/\/djysrv.googlepages.com\/HyperionPower_ANS_18Nov09.pdf\">just-released eight page \/ 18 slide summary<\/a> for the full treatment.<\/p>\n<p>Hyperion is pretty neat, and it, or <strong>Toshiba<\/strong>, which is working on its own small reactors, would be making the first modern mini-nuke (the Russians made quite a few decades ago). The idea with more world-shaking implications, though, is a fast reactor that can reuse uranium.&#160; <a href=\"http:\/\/industry.bnet.com\/energy\/10002520\/the-technologies-for-a-nuclear-resurgence\/?tag=content;top-active#comments\" target=\"_blank\">[Read Rest of story]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Chernobyl, it&#8217;s difficult to think of nuclear energy as a benign alternative to fossil fuels, but a movement toward small nuclear reactors is testing that possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[164,202,201,198,199,203,200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}