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US military eyes prototype mobile nuclear reactor in Idaho
- OliverJones 5y agoThere are many reasons to be skeptical of how the military might USE this kind of reactor. Ill-considered foreign deployments conducted by contractors without exit plans could cause many problems. But, there are fewer reasons to to be skeptical about a DOE National Lab's ability safely to develop some prototypes and learn a lot. Three Mile Island's near-meltdown was 42 years ago now. Even though there hasn't been much new construction of civilian nuclear power plants since then, it's absolutely worth investigating whether new reactors designs can be safer than 20th-century ones. Not investigating is a form of security through obscurity: always a bad idea. OTOH: A former president put a former Texas governor (Perry) in charge of the DOE, and Perry, when he took the job, was surprised to learn their major mission is dealing with all things nuclear. It's conceivable the DOE could fall under incompetent political leadership again.
- azernik 5y agoThe military generally doesn't hand off this kind of gear to contractors or to any but the most reliable allies. If they can get all of their own troops out - which the US did in Afghanistan - they can get out a high-value piece of equipment like this. (Militaries also have a long history of training troops on how to quickly disable gear in danger of capture.)
- Lammy 5y agoGood points. I wish they’d just stick with safe, limitless Bunker C diesel which hasn’t contributed to environmental damage at all over the previous 42 years. I didn’t look that up but I know it’s correct because there’s no way the global merchant marine fleet’s 17-thousand cargo vessels would be allowed to burn it in every corner of the world if it could leak out or if obtaining it was environmentally-destructive or if only one nation’s currency was allowed to purchase it: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeuro https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeur... Gotta watch out when searching for this stuff though, because Our Enemies’ propaganda distribution networks will use it as an excuse to blame America for having to protect the world from evil people like Saddam and Gaddafi https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all-about-oil-818/ https://www.rt.com/news/libya-all-about-oil-818/ You can tell RT are lying because Vladimir Putin owns only a paltry 50.002% stake in the world’s largest coal gas company and they probably welcome a little camaraderie from rival producer-nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom
- darig 5y agoTo be fair, the potatoes should soak up a lot of the radiation in a fallout event.
- lvs 5y agoIn an emergency bug out, one needs the ability to destroy or render safe and inoperable anything and everything. How the hell would that work with a reactor? Seems like a bad situation.
- bpodgursky 5y agoA 1to 5 MW reactor isn't going to have a lot of actual fuel... you could probably pull the actual weaponizable fuel pellets and shielding into something the size of a briefcase and leave the generation infrastructure behind. (I dunno if they are built this way, it just doesn't seem particularly impossible).
- __turbobrew__ 5y agoSo you are going to put the fissile material which operates at muti megawatts in a briefcase and carry it away? Disregarding the health and safety issues of the briefcase carrier the briefcase is sure to turn into a pile of molten radioactive sludge very quickly.
- fooker 5y agoYes, of course. Below critical mass for chain reaction, fissile material deteriorates fairly quickly into stable isotopes.
- rrss 5y agothe multi-megawatts comes from the nuclear chain reaction. presumably any package used to transport fuel would prevent criticality.
- adrianN 5y agoI believe the 1% of nominal output is a reasonable ballpark for cooling requirements after a reactor is shut down. 1% of 1MW is still 10kW. You probably don't want to transport that in a briefcase.
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- cratermoon 5y agoAgain? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion
- cjensen 5y agoTo address a few points made here... this isn't about frontline mobile bases or airplanes or ships. This is about "what if... we have a main base located somewhere with poor supply lines?" In other words, something like Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, shipping fuel in was extremely expensive resulting in costs of $400/gallon (~$100/liter) at the destination[1]. At that level of shipping costs, electrical generation is so expensive that it makes sense to investigate small-scale reactors to see if they could make economic sense. [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan- https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-...
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- MengerSponge 5y agoFor several years the US Government spent more on fuel to air condition tents in the desert than it did on NASA. I'm not talking about the tents themselves, or the soldiers living in them, their supplies or assistance after the war. All of that cost more. I'm just talking about fuel for air conditioners.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoThat's incredible, cost of war aside, you'd think solar and batteries would be used if only for the: 1) ability to redeploy 2) one-time shipping event for setup 3) ability to self sustain on supply issues.
- chefkoch 5y agoThat would be a massive amount of solar, if a tent AC has 7kw and a standard panel has 180w theoretical output.
- londons_explore 5y agoA standard 2x1m panel now has an output of more like 450-500 watts. Technology has moved on since the days of 9% efficient panels!
- teclordphrack2 5y agoIs it for ventilators?
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoDiz iz just a cover-up for building Wayward Pines!
- jlduan 5y agoNuclear submarine deal with Australia, now portable nuclear reactors. I really hope the world is not heading for nuclear arms race.
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- doikor 5y agoWell given that both are about nuclear power not nuclear weapons this comment makes no sense really.
- nix23 5y agoIt's kind of sad that everyone seams to think that nuclear power is the same as nuclear weapons, and the used stuff could be interchanged without any problems, and that a commercial nuclear power-station can produce weapon grade stuff without any problems. Is it just disinterest? Or the thinking that Nuclear is bad overall?
- garmaine 5y agoThe anti-nuclear crowd willfully conflates the two.
- rswail 5y agoExcept neither of these things are nuclear arms. They are nuclear fueled systems.
- awestroke 5y agoHow can the be a nuclear arms race if everyone already finished the race decades ago and there's enough nuclear bombs to turn the whole world into a wasteland?
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- konart 5y agoSomething similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power... ?
- mdp2021 5y agoI must be misreading something here: are these news about portable nuclear power plants, born out of military research but independent from military use? If this is a valid interpretation, it seems to me a competitor for "the news of the century". What is the catch? The cost? Maintenance? Vulnerability? If unfit for common civil use, it is still an impressive piece of progress in the direction of solving energy requirements problems, today one of the priorities.
- ceejayoz 5y agoWe’ve had portable nuclear plants on ships and submarines for decades. That part isn’t new.
- mdp2021 5y agoI did not know, thank you. And what are the issues that make such technology not apt to see our landscape constellated with mini nuclear power plants?
- jasonladuke0311 5y ago> And what are the issues that make such technology not apt to see our landscape constellated with mini nuclear power plants? Political ones, mostly. Though there certainly seem to be valid security/engineering concerns.
- Lammy 5y agoI love how atomic energy gets to be described as “resilient, carbon-free energy” but only when it’s going to power things that surveil, kill, or surveil and then kill. Luckily the same group of people who saved California from the scourge of atomic energy are still out there vigilantly protecting me from having to form my own opinions because I might form the wrong ones, aka the ones that don’t line their pockets and give cost-of-living another sorely-needed boost to help get all those troublesome poors (but I repeat myself) to move away while also thinking it was their own idea: https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/ https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra...
- aaron695 5y agoSouth Texas Geothermal Energy Project Ready to Provide Power That Never Stops for the Military - https://reportingtexas.com/south-texas-geothermal-energy-project-ready-to-provide-power-that-never-stops/ https://reportingtexas.com/south-texas-geothermal-energy-pro... This is less moveable but also an interesting idea of fortifying positions with constant energy. We need the mobile nuclear reactors but I'd also like to see the above prototyped, it will be expensive AF but it could be inline with military costs.
- entropicgravity 5y agoWhile I'm not in favor of new mainstream nuclear (because wind and solar combined with HVDC will suffice so why take the risk and expense) but small nuclear like this will continue to have a niche market that is awkward to service with other technologies.