Toshiba builds ultra-small nuclear reactor

hardware.slashdot.org -> nextenergynews.com :

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size nuclear reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.

- You can be pretty sure that's not quite what those environmentalists were envisioning when they were yelling for "distributed power generation". They were all probably thinking solar or wind instead of a nuclear reactor in the basement.

It does literally bring a new dimension to the question of "would you live next to a nuclear power plant?" The question now becomes "would you live on top of one?" I'm sure the anti-nuclear folks will go absolutely bonkers, but from the other point of view, it does look like they have sized it appropriately (200KW should serve about 200 apartment units at 1KW each), it will provide baseload power, and as an added bonus it could also provide heat in addition to electricity. Read this comment here.

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