2 ms·
*1 GW each. A small reactor is under a few hundred megawatts. A micro reactor is on the order of tens of megawatts. It's quite hard to make economic reactors b
by acidburnNSA 8y ago
*1 GW each.
A small reactor is under a few hundred megawatts. A micro reactor is on the order of tens of megawatts. It's quite hard to make economic reactors below that.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoSome Russian satellites went into space with two to a whopping six kilowatt reactors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A). The Americans in contrast only got a 500 watt reactor into the sky, and it failed after 43 days (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A).
- acidburnNSA 8y agoYes but when you aren't allowed to use highly-enriched (weapons-grade) uranium it's a different story. And space is a much different story for economics. Out there, fully enriching your fuel probably makes sense because weight is so expensive. My comment was limited to terrestrial reactors.