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Backyard Nukes: Should Nuclear Power Be a Part of Our Green Energy Strategy?
by Lee H Goldberg
Like it or not, nuclear power is making a strong comeback – and gaining the support of many previous foes who have decided that they’d rather worry about how to safely process radioactive waste than try to figure out how to survive on a fatally-overheated planet. As one of those granola-munching protesters who helped blockade the Seabrook and Limerick plants back in the 1980s, I too have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we must at least consider nuclear power for at least part of the global energy mix. That’s why I’m especially intrigued about the so-called “backyard nuke” technology being promoted by Hyperion Power Generation.
When I ran into them at GreenTech Media’s Green Power Symposium this spring, they made a convincing argument for small (25 – 70 MW), mass-produced nuclear reactors with a fail-safe, self-moderating design that should let them run with minimal supervision for 5 – 8 years before being brought back to their factory for refueling and refurbishment. Since it would be virtually maintenance-free, an Hyperion reactor could be buried under several meters of concrete that provide both shielding and a strong deterrent to any would-be troublemakers.
At the time, Hyperion CEO John R (Grizz) Deal did not provide many details regarding their electrical power generation capabilities and much of the information in his talk (and on Hyperion’s web site) focused on applications for the 70 MW worth of thermal energy that their reactors produced. This included water desalinization and heating the water used to enhance the yield of oil and natural gas fields. There was some mention that the same plant could produce about 27 MW worth of electricity (enough to light around 20,000 average US homes), but there was not enough information to take their idea to prop up the grid by sprinkling the countryside with small-scale nukes seriously.
It seems, however, that Hyperion is finally lifting the kimono a bit and revealing some of the details of its nuclear-electric capabilities at the Powering Toward 2020 Conference at the Barbican in London, England. According to their latest press release, Hyperion will shed some light on how its reactor and generating subsystems work and how it was able to meet all the safety and all the non-proliferation criteria of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). In a subsequent press release, they provided a few more details of the reactor design, including the fact that it uses a Uranium hydride fuel and is cooled using a liquid metal system that uses a lead/bismuth mixture as its working fluid.
If Hyperion’s design really lives up to its claims, their mini-nukes could be a credible alternative to larger plants that take decades to build and require massive amounts of cooling water that may not be available in many places. The idea of being able to transport the entire reactor back to the factory for refurbishment and fuel reprocessing is also very intriguing: although still filled with potential hazards.
Nevertheless, I’m very interested and ready to consider nuclear power as a viable part of a clean energy mix, if the industry can answer a few key questions:
- Demonstrate that the nuclear fuel cycles in commercial reactors can be improved to reprocess as much waste back into fuel as possible and minimize the waste that we must keep safe for 10s of thousands of years to a minimum. I’d also like to see technologies developed that avoid the production of the millions of pounds of lower-level radioactive waste that our nuclear power industry currently generates each year.
- Come up with some credible numbers on the energy pay-back of nuclear power. Mining, extracting and purifying fuel-grade uranium is an exceptionally energy-intensive business – not to mention the energy used to produce the concrete and steel that goes into the nuclear plant itself. While I suspect that most nuclear power plants produce a significant net energy gain, I have not seen any credible analysis that proves it. This lack of bookkeeping was what allowed us to piss away billions of dollars into corn-based ethanol production before we figured out that it took more energy to produce than it yielded.
- Make sure that energy conservation and renewable energy are a significant part of our national (and global) energy mix. With few exceptions, conservation technologies yield the best bang for the buck of any investment – a fact that will become increasingly true as fossil fuel prices continue their inevitable upward trend. Those same energy prices are also shortening the time it will take wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies to become economically competitive even if you don’t factor in the hidden environmental costs of carbon-based fuels. Meanwhile it will be important to make sure that the historical government subsidies of nuclear power do not allow it to displace renewables before they are mature enough to take their place in the mainstream energy mix.
Comments? Questions? Want to discuss what you’d do with your own backyard nuke? Post your thoughts on our Blog or write me at lhg at en-genius dot net.
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