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The Egg, an at Home Nuclear Reactor
- veidelis 2y agoThe Enron Egg is a compact nuclear reactor that uses Uranium-Zirconium Hydride (U-ZrH) fuel rods to generate heat through nuclear fission. This heat is transferred via a 3D-printed Inconel heat exchanger, powering a turbine to generate electricity. A closed-loop cooling system ensures safe operation without environmental contamination.
- taylodl 2y agoThe new Enron and the Enron Egg is all parody. I really wish it weren't! https://www.ibtimes.com/enrons-satirical-comeback-meet-enron-egg-fake-home-nuclear-reactor-3758108 https://www.ibtimes.com/enrons-satirical-comeback-meet-enron...
- boredtofears 2y agoCrazy part is that he picked up the Enron trademark for $250!
- ynniv 2y agoThis is honestly the real "hacker news". $250 for what was likely millions of dollars of visual design and global household name recognition
- nocoiner 2y agoAmazing. And indeed, surely a multi-million dollar commission (in ‘90s dollars!) - the logo is from the same guy who did the logos for IBM and NeXT (among many others).
- jonwinstanley 2y agoPaul Rand The Enron logo has a couple of similarities to the Next computers logo. https://www.paulrand.design/work/Enron.html https://www.paulrand.design/work/Enron.html
- duskwuff 2y agoNot like it had a lot of practical value. Sure, it cost a lot to design -- but all that value went down the drain in 2001.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> a compact nuclear reactor that uses Uranium-Zirconium Hydride (U-ZrH) fuel rods to generate heat through nuclear fission Would this really be more toxic than common refrigerants? Or e.g. hydrazine?
- philipkglass 2y agoBefore it has reached criticality for the first time, its contents are less toxic than hydrazine. After criticality, the contents are more toxic than hydrazine. Nuclear reactors are safe because so much engineering and procedural effort goes into keeping the fuel and its fission products contained. The fission products include extremely toxic materials. Strontium-90, one of the more common medium-lifetime fission products, has an acute gram-for-gram lethality comparable to the nerve gas sarin. The fast-decaying fission products like strontium-89 are even worse, though by their very nature they don't persist for long in discarded fuel.
- sgt 2y agoAlready pre-ordered a dozen
- actionfromafar 2y agoBaker's? https://books.google.se/books/about/Nuclear_Power_and_Energy_Policy.html?id=dXikCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.se/books/about/Nuclear_Power_and_Energy...
- AndreiCalazans 2y agoAre you sure this is not a joke?
- SaintGhurka 2y agoAren't jokes supposed to be funny?
- itslennysfault 2y agoUmm..... Enron??
- nemomarx 2y agosomeone bought the name and logo and has been doing little parodies
- bdndndndbve 2y agoDoes this even rise to the level of parody? This is just... A thing. Just kinda lying to people and then saying gotcha.
- rzzzt 2y agoIs it a hard requirement for a parody to parody something else?
- nearbuy 2y agoPretty much.
- nemomarx 2y agoI guess the implicit humor is just mocking enron as the image of a failed company who would do reckless things? it doesn't seem very sophisticated but I'm not sure what else you'd call it.
- uncle_billy 2y agoI got that sense too, but after watching the video, I felt like it was more of an indictment of American tech culture (especially with the recent block chain, crypto, and now AI hype). As I watched the video I felt increasingly scared of the thought of home nuclear reactors made a company solely motivated by increasing profits YoY. Honestly it was more scary than funny.
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- schappim 2y ago"THE INFORMATION ON THE WEBSITE IS FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED PARODY, REPRESENTS PERFORMANCE ART, AND IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY."[1] [1] https://enron.com/pages/terms-of-use https://enron.com/pages/terms-of-use
- vasco 2y agoSome guys bought the trademark and are selling merchandise and making memes for a while now. Their new Enron tiktok is gold.
- actionfromafar 2y agoOnly? That's disappointing. This is the problem with companies these days using purportedly "Open Source" licenses which are anything but. It's misrepresentative at best and switch-and-bait at worst. :-/
- cmiller1 2y agoBah, useless fission, wake me when the Mr. Fusion comes out.
- zephyreon 2y agoThe Egg may be fake, but the merch is real. [1] [1] https://enron.com/collections/shop https://enron.com/collections/shop
- tbolt 2y agoShame <marquee> is deprecated. That's the best use I've ever seen. <marquee>The World's Leading Company</marquee>
- selimthegrim 2y agoIt’s like Axact - The World’s Leading IT Company
- pmarreck 2y agoThere are actual micronuclear reactors though, which is why I was initially hopeful lol: https://westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/evinci-microreactor/ https://westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/evinci-micror... Other names to google: NuScale VOYGR™ Micro (77MW scalable), Oklo Aurora (1.5MW), Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) (5MW thermal, 1.5MW electric), Rolls-Royce SMR (470 MW), HolosGen HolosQuad (3-13 MW), X-energy Xe-100 (80 MW)
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThis seems closer to an RTG [1]. Legality aside, could one design a desktop RTG with a practical power output? Say with an open-cycle boiling-water design, to keep things simple. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoI’d go with closed cycle Stirling engines. Even better efficiency than open water boiling. The general rtg use cases care less about efficiency than long term reliability though so that’s why they use thermocouples. But it would be reasonably trivial to use a Stirling engine instead (unless you’re going to extreme environments where mechanical parts no longer work well)
- martin293 2y agoDon't RTGs generate power constantly? That would make them impossible to use for a casual customer.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoSuch a convenient space heater wouldn't ya know?
- martin293 2y agoPossibly. I'm not sure what you would do with it in the summer though. Even Arctic and Antarctica have pretty big seasonal temperature variations.
- _yb2s 2y agoI was skeptical at first, but given that it’s such a well known energy company, I’m sure this will be a great product!
- koromak 2y ago118$ for a sweatshirt. Guess those rights were expensive.
- throwaway5752 2y agohttps://www.independent.co.uk/tech/enron-egg-price-nuclear-stock-b2675248.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/enron-egg-price-nuclear-s... “This product is gonna revolutionize three critical industries. The power industry, the independence industry, and the freedom industry. This product is gonna revolutionize all three,” Enron CEO Connor Gaydos claimed in a video presentation announcing the egg. Gaydos is also the co-founder of the satirical “Birds Aren't Real” movement, which asserts that all real birds existing in the U.S. had been forcibly made extinct and were replaced by the government with surveillance drones that look like birds.
- rglover 2y agoThe Birds Aren't Real guy securing the Enron domain and social handles is chef's kiss.
- bb88 2y agoMy only wish is that Hacker News allowed satire by clearly marking content with '[satire]' at the end. Without humor the only option is to end up in controversial squabbles.
- HelloUsername 2y agoNot great, not terrible
- tekawade 2y agoI really thought it’s real. I should really ask more questions. It will be cool product one day. Power companies will never let something like this come out.