US Plans "Disposable" Nuclear Batteries 297
holy_calamity writes "A US government program is in the works to design small nuclear reactors for use by developing countries. The work continues despite fears about security and nuclear proliferation. Plans include having reactors supplied with fuel by the US and other trusted nations, or to build reactors with their whole lifetime of fuel packaged securely inside — like a giant non-user replaceable radioactive battery.' '"
FFS (Score:4, Insightful)
Fer crying out loud. It's bad enough that we're running out of fossil fuels, but between the hardcore environmentalists and paranoid first world countries, we're not making much traction on the nuclear issue, which is a shame. Talk up your fave green project all you want, but all of us need to get on the nuclear power plant bandwagon sooner rather than later. cheap fusion's not going to be here for a while.
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can build desalinization plants around the nuclear device, it would be easier to secure, and immediately noticed if someone started tampering with it. i.e. the loss of power.
Let's hope it works (Score:4, Insightful)
At Last! (Score:2, Insightful)
CopperTop Size Dx10^238 (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you read the "developing countries" bit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It probably makes more sense than you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-user replaceable battery? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is Apple going to be building these things?
(Not that I don't like Apple products, I just wish the batteries on iPods were replaceable.) :)
Re:FFS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Proliferation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Proliferation and security (Score:5, Insightful)
I think TFA misses the point entirely: the main reason for the work is to address security and nuclear proliferation fears. Packaging reactors that are not particularly useful in an arms program with a complete lifetime of fuel and making them available to developing countries is intended as a minimize both the reality and the appearance of a legitimate need for developing countries to have their own civilian (or merely "civilian") nuclear programs, which could more easily be converted to (or covers for) military programs.
Clearly, they aren't proliferation proof, but traditional reactors, especially built and developed locally (even if with outside assistance) are even less proliferation-proof, and those are spreading in the absence of any effort to provide an alternative. This is an attempt to lessen the both the actual need and the political viability of the claim of a need for those kind of independent programs.
The alternative to this program is not that the developing world gets no nuclear material and no reactors.
Re:Whatever you do . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong with running undersea cables? (Score:2, Insightful)
Trusted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trusted by who?
Nukes NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
1. In today's economy, energy availability is one of the keys to economic growth and a reasonable standard of living, especially for developing nations.
2. The general consensus is that carbon fuels are harming the environment.
3. "Alternative" energy sources such as solar and wind are much more expensive per unit of energy than carbon, and developing nations have little interest in them.
Therefore, AFAIK, the only feasible source of energy that can lift people to western standards of living without burning huge amounts of fossil fuels is nuclear. Even so, developing nations have no interest in nuclear (except Iran and DRK) because it is still more expensive than coal. To spread nuclear power will require incentives and R&D taylored to small nations.
Nuclear power is by far the safest source of energy that can be deployed anywhere in the world (sorry hydro and thermo), and I think a program such as this one could be one of the greatest developments for the world's poor. Even the US could use 100 new nuclear plants today to achieve its environmental goals.
Re:This is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Do nothing and a hue and a cry goes up for leadership. Do something and a hue and a cry goes up because we're insufferable bastards forcing or will on the rest of the world.
You don't get it both ways. Either we lead the way or we don't. I haven't seen a plan like this put out by any other first world nation, though I suppose I could be lacking information.
Re:Good use of taxpayer money? (Score:5, Insightful)
The US Government is not the USA.
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Here first please. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CopperTop Size Dx10^238 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is bad (Score:-1, Insightful)
Re:Good use of taxpayer money? (Score:3, Insightful)
How much is it worth to have a massive floating hospital visit your shores, treating tens of thousands of people in the course of a few weeks?
Fixed it for you (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FFS (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, they could make money and reduce everyone's power consumption by raising the price of power.
Is there any reason why people can't buy solar panels and put them on their roofs? Are they too expensive? Ugly? Do they not provide enough power for the average home?
I still live in my parents' house so I don't have a say in the matter.
Problem Needs a Solution, Not Political Bickering (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of you - we can't go on like this. Other countries are "coming on line" soon and will need their share of oil, too. There's just not enough to go around; not in the long term. All the wishful thinking in the world isn't going to change this - we need to find another energy source, go back to the stone age, or fight World War Three to secure what's left of a disappearing resource.
Those who think that hydrogen or ethanol are the solution - go to the back of the bus. There's no free hydrogen on this planet and to obtain free hydrogen you need to add energy. Current methods for obtaining hydrogen: electrolyse water (big energy) or catalytically extract it from natural gas (limited supply). There's no free energy here, hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy supply.
The ethanol solution is also based on mostly fantasy. Sure, you can ferment carbohydrates at virtually no cost other than the carbohydrate source. But distilling it to obtain the ethanol is a high energy operation. Can ethanol be distilled using less energy than can be obtained by burning it? Maybe someday, but using today's technology it's a losing proposition. And don't forget that the carbohydrate source is the same one that we call "food". Our government's current push for ethanol is the reason that Mexican farmers are plowing under their agave crops and planting corn instead. When you notice that the price of your tequila has skyrocketed, thank your government.
When looking for an energy source, forget just looking at things you can burn to release energy. Look at things that can be found naturally in a state where they can be burned to release energy; these may be useful energy sources. That eliminates hydrogen and ethanol, both of those require energy input to manufacture.
Until something else is discovered, other than oil the only primary source of energy we know of is nuclear power. You can demonstrate against it - and it is indeed an imperfect source of power; disposal of the "exhaust" is a very difficult problem. But it's the only thing that we've got to work with in the long term.
Wind and water may provide some energy, but they won't be enough. If you don't want nuclear energy, suggest something else that will provide a positive energy result.
Re:Whatever you do . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
(hint-yes, in fact, nuclear power was involved, man makes stuff, sometimes stuff happens with what man makes, because "man" has an amazing proclivity to FUCK UP on a pretty regular schedule, we have just as many failures as we do successes with this or that technology eventually. What you wrote is like saying software code has nothing to do with malware infections, or airplanes have nothing to do with airplane crashes.)
Re:Whatever you do . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:FFS (Score:3, Insightful)
So a deliberate effort to reduce power consumption is part of the puzzle, it doesn't fix anything. Take your example of Coal plants and think about how much more efficient heating and AC units are, computers have gotten more powerful and use less overall energy. Refrigeration units, almost everything uses less energy now then 10 or 20 years ago and we have still seen massive increased demands. Even with cars, they have become more efficient. Trucks and SUVs are even more efficient then 20 years ago and yet we are increasing our demand.
On a side note, that is why things like Kyoto and Europe's participation is having such a hard time complying with their commitments. It would almost require a negetive growth in markets and population until the government gave the ok to have kids or buy new things.
Re:Whatever you do . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is bad (Score:3, Insightful)
So, like, they'd open a chain of free health clinics or something? Using Peruvian tax dollars? Okay.
Foreign aid is better given as specific goods and services, rather than cash. Money has a way of disappearing when gifted to 3rd-world governments. (Or any government, really, but it's worse in some places.)
Re:trusted nations indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whatever you do . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
A better comparison would be saying "The Car was not at fault" when someone drives it off a bridge