# Green or not?



## Later (Feb 12, 2010)

Just wondering if the folks here think that this technology is green or not. 

http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/


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## Flatbedford (Feb 12, 2010)

Sounds too good to be true. Not being an expert, I believe that nuclear power is the only reasonable solution out there to dependence on fossil fuels. Making it safe, portable and compact seems like an obvious next step in the development of nuclear power. 
A quick google search didn't turn up any blatant arguments against this. Maybe somebody else can find some?


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## timfromohio (Feb 12, 2010)

25 MWatts from a box that's "1.5m across x 2.5m in height" with "no moving parts" sounds suspect, but that's just the engineer in me ...


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## spur0701 (Feb 13, 2010)

timfromohio said:
			
		

> 25 MWatts from a box that's "1.5m across x 2.5m in height" with "no moving parts" sounds suspect, but that's just the engineer in me ...



I think I remember reading a story about this or something like it not too long ago.....an alternate reactor design having something to do with fuel pellets encapsulated in control media and that sealed in a big drum........but that just provides the heat I think, not the turbines or anything else necessary to turn that into electricity.


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## timfromohio (Feb 13, 2010)

spur0701 - that sounds more realistic.  Still, one would think that with all of the hardware necessary to control a nuclear fission reaction it would be difficult to maintain a steady-state reaction with just coated pellets?


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## deck2 (Feb 13, 2010)

It sounds great and maybe the way of the future but this is a logistical nightmere.  Its still radioactive!  Even under controlled lab enviroments they have meltdowns, now think about a truck on a freeway transporting this unit to a private residence in your neighborhood!   and I am not sure my neighbors would be happy if all of a sudden they were being evacuated because I had a nucular meltdown in my basement.     

Hey anyone remember Back To The Future?  Mr. Fusion bolted to the back of a Delorean   

Its a great idea but I think we are years away from it being used in the mainstream but I had a technology teacher tell me in Jr HS that the idea of hybrid cars would not be something he would see mainstream in his lifetime, that was less than 20yrs ago and here they are and so is he!  Technology has advanced so much in the last 25 yrs. If you told someone 30yrs ago that they would be able to talk to thousands of people on a forum like hearth.com anytime from a small personal portable laptop computer from anywhere they wished they would have told you that you were dreaming, but here we are and the internet is "Old Technology" at this point in time!


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## timfromohio (Feb 13, 2010)

deck2 - I'd never want one of those power generation units anywhere near me.  As smart as we think we are (people in general), there will ALWAYS be failures.  Always.  Don't want to be anywhere near a substance with a half-life of 10.000 years when the failure occurs.


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## Flatbedford (Feb 13, 2010)

The website says that this thing will power up to 20,000 homes. Probably won't find it in your neighbor's house.
Here's my thoughts on nuclear power generation and radioactivity. On the lower Hudson River, all within a few miles of my home are a nuclear power plant, a somewhat modern and clean garbage incinerator fired plant, an oil fired power plant, and up until a couple years ago, a coal fired power plant. The nuke plant could spew all kinds of bad, radioactive stuff if something were to go wrong. When the other plants are running perfectly, and nothing is going wrong, they are spewing tons of crap into the air 24/7.


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## timfromohio (Feb 14, 2010)

Flatbed - you make a good point.  Nuclear stuff just gives me the heebeegeebee's


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## DBoon (Feb 14, 2010)

Hi Flatbedford, you seem to be one of the few reasonable people I've met from the NY city area who aren't hysterically crying out for that nuclear plant to be closed immediately.


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## Lousyweather (Feb 14, 2010)

Retired Guy said:
			
		

> Just wondering if the folks here think that this technology is green or not.
> 
> http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/




Hm, put a small reactor in people's homes..........gosh, i cant get people to clean their stove, let alone tend to their reactor!


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## deck2 (Feb 14, 2010)

Flatbed is right these units are not gonna be located in your basement like I had thought.  :red:   and the more I have read about this it might be sustainable source of power on a local level.   I am just wondering how they plan on harnessing the power from the fuel without any moving parts?

(edit) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Power_Generation

found this and they plan on using a turbine, so it looks like the reactors do not contain any moving parts but the turbines attached to them do!


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## Later (Feb 14, 2010)

The best I can figure is that it is not a fission reaction, just heat from radioactive decay.


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## Flatbedford (Feb 15, 2010)

DBoon said:
			
		

> Hi Flatbedford, you seem to be one of the few reasonable people I've met from the NY city area who aren't hysterically crying out for that nuclear plant to be closed immediately.



That place keeps my school taxes the low and they throw a lot of money around the area, supporting some good local causes. They also put on a heck of a fireworks show in August.

Besides, even if it were closed tomorrow, there would be radioactive stuff on the site forever as there is no place to put it anyway. May as well keep it going and get something in return for whatever health and safety risk it may pose.


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## Later (Feb 15, 2010)

We decided in the 1970's not to re-use and reprocess high level waste into fuel and to instead let it accumulate at the plants.


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## webbie (Feb 15, 2010)

Because it was too expensive and not feasible, Retired......think about it. Why should they tackle a problem they can leave to future generations? The nuke industry is insured by you and I - by an Act of Congress. The money is made hand over fist because they don't have to pay the true cost of the eventual cleanup and reprocessing. What's not to like for a corporation?

I am not anti-technology and I think if we were to come back in 150 years things like this reactor will exist. However, if your kids crashes the car you are unlikely to give him another new one. Let the industry prove it can actually do ONE thing that it says it can do about reprocessing....

Meantime, our local nuke is leaking large quantities of tritium into the river....and, of course, they refuse to shut it down...in fact, they are extending their license MUCH longer than the plant was designed for! Their excuse it this. Yes, they say, it is leaking a lot. BUT, closing it down will not help us find the leak, so why close it?

Makes some sense if you look at it from a profit vantage point alone. But we have a bunch of talking heads running around shouting about leaving debt to our children...what do you think this is? The billions or trillions it will eventually take to clean up nuke plants and fuel is not being paid by us...those using the electric.


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## Later (Feb 15, 2010)

Reprocessing is extremely practical and economical. President Carter stopped breeder reactor construction perhaps because of his daughter's concern of proliferation. My recollection is that fast breeder reactors produce more fuel than they consume and extract considerable energy from depleted uranium, greatly reducing the physical size of the waste that needs to be stored. As far as I am concerned it was one of the worst decisions of his presidency


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## webbie (Feb 15, 2010)

I don't think it is as simple as that.
France is storing a couple cubic miles of the stuff and only reprocessing a tiny amount and they have put decades of money and resources into it. They also have to consider nuke weapons...I think the highly enriched stuff is easier to make into dirty or clean bombs. 

After Three Mile Island, the American public went strongly anti-nuke. 

Still, Reagan overturned that ban in 1981...that's almost 30 years ago!
"October 8, 1981
The Reagan Administration announces a nuclear energy policy that anticipates the establishment of a facility for the storage of high-level radioactive waste and lifts the ban on commercial reprocessing of nuclear fuel."

So, RG, has the time spent before that and the 30 years after come up with anything good? It took about 2 years to build the bomb from scratch back before we had computers and all the tools of today. Now we have 30+ years and many nations working on something and have nothing to show (or very little)...seems weird??


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## timfromohio (Feb 16, 2010)

Regardless of technical complexity, safety, and the disposal of waste the ONLY reason that anybody anywhere utilizes nuclear power is b/c of intensive government subsidy.  Economically, it cannot stand on its own two feet.  I'd much rather subsidize a more benign industry like PV than one which requires multiple generations after us to deal with the ramifications of the leftover waste.


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## webbie (Feb 16, 2010)

That makes a lot of sense. I see some hypocrisy in the old "free market" viewpoint of some folks who then like nuclear power WITHOUT the free market. From a pure libertarian view, it would look like this - unless the company can remediate 100% of the nuclear fuel cycle, from digging of the uranium to making what comes out the other end benign, then it should not be able to open or function. Furthermore, they should not be able to play corporate shell games and open the nukes under other names so those companies can go belly up and leave us with the bill

In one word - responsibility.

I don't mind government being involved in the R&D, tax credits and other incentives to get complicated technologies started. But after a while, it should be able to sink or swim on it's own, IMHO.


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## renewablejohn (Feb 25, 2010)

We only require one nuclear reactor to power the whole world and it already exists and is far enough away from me to be happy from a safety point of view even though I do suffer from the sun burn occasionally.


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## Flatbedford (Feb 26, 2010)

renewablejohn said:
			
		

> We only require one nuclear reactor to power the whole world and it already exists and is far enough away from me to be happy from a safety point of view even though I do suffer from the sun burn occasionally.



True. _All_ our energy comes from it.


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