On Nov 9, 2008, at 10:21 AM, Francis Drouillard wrote:
> > I'll take one: > > <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear- > reactors-los-alamos> " They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each..." You hit the lottery recently? :-) It's a neat way of designing a reactor, here's the patent app <http://tinyurl.com/6o35dw >; Hyperion's web site makes it sound like you just plunk one in the ground and jumper cable it to the grid...all it is is a heat source. The problem with these designs is that it puts a dirty bomb within reach of anyone with a backhoe and a truck...when some happy jihadist decides to bust one open and spread all that finely divided fuel around London or NYC courtesy of a hundred pounds of semtex. The other problem is that while these minimize the environmental damage caused by nuclear power plants, they do not ameliorate the damage from making, fueling and dealing with wastes from these things, although from the patent app, it looks as though reprocessing the fuel isn't that much of a hassle; you're still reprocessing a hell of a lot of radioactive stuff. This is definitely a safer way of making utility-scale nuclear power plants (just plunk a whole bunch into the ground) but sticking these things off near and far is a little risky for the real world. -- Bruce Johnson "No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/StrataList-OT?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
