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S3: Small, Mobile Nuclear Reactors

Will Prowse

Will Prowse

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Great video covering the basics! Not many subscribers here either.

Imagine having a small reactor charging your off-grid batteries, 24/7. Even if the output is 1000W continuous, it would be plenty to slow charge a battery all day!

Perfect combination with off-grid solar for the winter. Would easily replace generators and would last for decades.
 
Drunk Engineer said:
The one in the video is a megawatt reactor costing millions of dollars. You wouldn't use it for an off-grid house.
Click to expand...
Absolutely! But they are coming.

I always loved the RTG reactors on Mars rovers. They output only 110W but can run that for decades. And it was relatively small.

Once we get these large ones selling, the house size reactors will be next.
 
In a safe and sane world it would be great, but I see potential nightmare scenario with unsecured/unguarded/orphaned
nuclear sources. History is full of examples.
I’ve worked in nuclear sites and appreciate the levels of security and actually want to see more especially worldwide.
 
I want Thorium from what I remember it is really safe, and fuel is very plentiful, if they can make it work.
 
Will Prowse said:
But they are coming.
Click to expand...
Didn't you predict that someday solar would be illegal? Or that DIY solar would be illegal? Sorry I don't remember exactly. It was in a thread about California's new solar rules where the state basically takes away your panels. I don't remember exactly, but I agree with you that it seems they are heading in the direction of more and more rules and restrictions, not less. Just my humble opinion but I would think people having their own private nuclear power station is a bit far-fetched.
 
kolek said:
Didn't you predict that someday solar would be illegal? Or that DIY solar would be illegal? Sorry I don't remember exactly. It was in a thread about California's new solar rules where the state basically takes away your panels. I don't remember exactly, but I agree with you that it seems they are heading in the direction of more and more rules and restrictions, not less. Just my humble opinion but I would think people having their own private nuclear power station is a bit far-fetched.
Click to expand...
Yes, off-grid solar that is not controlled by utility provider. Nem 3.0 is going to spread.
 
Thermoelectric generators require a temperature gradient. The RTG works Ok in space and on Mars, but how much power would it generate on Earth I wonder?
 
kolek said:
Didn't you predict that someday solar would be illegal? Or that DIY solar would be illegal? Sorry I don't remember exactly. It was in a thread about California's new solar rules where the state basically takes away your panels. I don't remember exactly, but I agree with you that it seems they are heading in the direction of more and more rules and restrictions, not less. Just my humble opinion but I would think people having their own private nuclear power station is a bit far-fetched.
Click to expand...
How is it far fetched? Nuclear Reactors are simple. Biggest hurdle has always been initial investment and safety systems. And public ignorance. Look at how complex a solar system can be. A nuclear reactor could reduce the size and complexity of a off-grid system. Reactor and battery, with supplemental pv array would be a killer combo.
 
Will Prowse said:
How is it far fetched? Nuclear Reactors are simple. Biggest hurdle has always been initial investment and safety systems. And public ignorance. Look at how complex a solar system can be. A nuclear reactor could reduce the size and complexity of a off-grid system. Reactor and battery, with supplemental pv array would be a killer combo.
Click to expand...
The biggest hurdle is the money flowing to lobbyists from competitive energy sources with the goal to kill safe, clean, cheap ,unlimited, multi purpose energy like LFTR.
 
There is probably some sweet spot - I suspect that 1 1MW reactor is much cheaper to build (and manage) than 100 10KW reactors. But I would love to have my own 10KW reactor. Did you notice though that point in the video where he essentially said "this fence is the safe distance, where you can have a school or McDonalds". Would have to work on that to put even a small one at my house. Could easily make sense for a neighborhood. Building code in 2040 says each new development has to have 1MW per 100 houses :)

If they can manage to get 1MW fission reactors down to the size/cost/maint of a similarly rated diesel genset, that would be awesome. Although diesel generators are far more expensive per KWh than baseline power plants.

These would also have a big impact on the grid I think. Probably net positive. Distributed generation is a very good thing, and baseline (always on) generation is much better for the grid than intermittent solar/wind. I suppose we know how to add 1MW (or much bigger) solar plants, so one of these should be OK. Would need a way to ramp them up/down by the poco if they are feeding back to the grid.

Would make a huge amount of sense for something like a data center or other large constant load that it could consume on-site.
 
I see 2 major hurdles that would need to be overcome.

1. Public fear of the word "nuclear" and "radiation". Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima etc. I am old enough to remember all three.

2. The level of safety would have to be very high. There are about 150 million homes in the USA. If nuclear reactors were to become a success and they were operating in 50 million homes. How low would the failure rate need to be? By failure, I mean some type of leak.
 
Skypower said:
The biggest hurdle is the money flowing to lobbyists from competitive energy sources with the goal to kill safe, clean, cheap ,unlimited, multi purpose energy like LFTR.
Click to expand...
Exactly. That plus just the general trend is utilities becoming increasingly aggressive against independent sources of power. Isn't that what's behind NEM 3.0?

Or another example is policies like "Our smart meters are watching you like a hawk and if we catch you exporting even minuscule amounts of power for a milisecond, we're going to disconnect you from the grid."

When individual nuclear comes around suddenly the PoCo is going to welcome us no longer needing them and having our own independent source of energy?
 
Space probes use enriched plutonium reactors. Might need to develop thorium breeder type reactor to make the fuel non-weapons capable. Like you said, a constant 1-2kw with battery would be sufficient for a home. Maybe transformer size (replace the neighborhood brown box) with batteries in each home, to power a few homes.
 
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