I’m about to say something very controversial. I’m not against nuclear power. There I said it and I feel better getting it off my chest.
I think we should all work hard at reducing the amount of energy we consume by changing our habits, improving technology and focusing on good design. That said, I’m still a realist. I know that there isn’t a green energy source out there that creates anything close to the quantity of power on a continuous basis that nuclear does. Wind requires the use of vast tracts of space, a good location and of course wind. Solar is also very acreage intensive needs a good location and only generates meaningfully amounts of power for 6 to 8 hours of the day.
The biggest problem with this is that any good electric grid needs some way to generate a consistent base level of power 24 hours a day. Sure you can use solar or wind to generate power and then store it some how but that has its own problems. To get an idea about how to store energy and how involved it can be read this post.
When it comes to base load power you really have only a few options. There is coal, oil and gas, hydro and Nuclear. Unless you are lucky enough to have a damable water supply nearby then Nuclear is your best choice.
One of the problems with nuclear has always been that the cost and time to set it up made it prohibitive for all but the largest scale applications. Now a company has developed a very small scale reactor that could make nuclear far more attainable for smaller countries and remote locations.
According to Hyperions website their nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub, incapable of meltdown, has no moving parts to wear out and can be shipped on a truck and creates zero greenhouse emissions. For all of you wondering about the waste this reactor will create the equivalent to a softball after 5 years of operation. You also don’t have to worry about terrorist bomb making applications as the waste is not appropriate for proliferation purposes and can actually be recycled. All this and it generates 25 megawatts. By comparison the largest existing wind farms only generate 160 megawatts and the largest solar farm creates 20 megawatts and takes up 247 acres of land to do it.
I know that solar and wind tech are improving every day but they have a long way to go to beat this kind of energy density.
Tags: hyperion · nuclear power1 Comment
