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Is nuclear power the key to the energy needs of the future? New nuclear power plant designs with less shorter lived waste and small sizes may revolutionize the nuclear power idea. Hydrogen production needs intense power sources to supply the hydrogen necessary for a hydrogen economy and electricity for every one needs to be reliable and not Dependant on the weather or on manufacturing that leaks huge amounts of chemical pollution into the environment and depends of cheap labor from foreign countries where people are used up to profit their country. Nuclear can be the answer. Here two examples of the new face of nuclear energy.

 

Sustainable Nuclear Energy Moves A Step Closer

 

Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor

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Is nuclear power the key to the energy needs of the future? New nuclear power plant designs with less shorter lived waste and small sizes may revolutionize the nuclear power idea. Hydrogen production needs intense power sources to supply the hydrogen necessary for a hydrogen economy and electricity for every one needs to be reliable and not Dependant on the weather or on manufacturing that leaks huge amounts of chemical pollution into the environment and depends of cheap labor from foreign countries where people are used up to profit their country. Nuclear can be the answer. Here two examples of the new face of nuclear energy.

 

Interesting!

 

I think is should definitely be one of the major ones, given the current state of affairs. Too bad we dropped the ball on this 30 years ago...

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Could someone give my some references to verify this, as most pages, even the Wikipedia one on the 4S reactor somehow trails back to a very small group of sources. It is suppose to be a joint venture between Toshiba and CRIEPI, but if you search CRIEPI's site for Toshiba, nothing along the line of nuclear reactors pop up. It is also said to be a sodium cooled reactor, but neither that trigger a hit on the CRIEPI site. There is also no reference that I could find on the Toshiba nuclear site.

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Could someone give my some references to verify this, as most pages, even the Wikipedia one on the 4S reactor somehow trails back to a very small group of sources. It is suppose to be a joint venture between Toshiba and CRIEPI, but if you search CRIEPI's site for Toshiba, nothing along the line of nuclear reactors pop up. It is also said to be a sodium cooled reactor, but neither that trigger a hit on the CRIEPI site. There is also no reference that I could find on the Toshiba nuclear site.

 

 

I found it on the New Scientist site ( I think) I'll check my sources.

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search for the mini reactor

 

 

Blingo: Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro...

 

Evidently you are not the only one having problems connecting the dots on this. Not sure why, if it was a fake then i' sure Toshiba would be all over it with denial but then maybe they are getting so much negative press on this they want it to die. Not sure, I hope it's not being killed.

 

New nuke stuff

 

Nuclear Power: Most Successful Fuel Performance Ever For US Advanced Gas Reactor Fuel

 

Project Aims To Make Sodium-cooled Nuclear Reactors Safe, Efficient

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search for the mini reactor

 

 

Blingo: Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro...

Most of the links given for that search on blingo.com can be traced back to NextEnergyNews.com. One however is of interest and I quote from a letter, suppose to be from Toshiba's Corporate Communications Office:

Dear Mr. Allan,

 

Thank you for contacting Toshiba's Corporate Communications Office and for inviting us to your radio show interview program.

 

First of all, we came to know that there are a great number of references of "micro nuclear reactor" on google search, many of the which use Toshiba logo and 4S system image with unfamiliar name "micro nuclear", unfamiliar mark and unfamiliar information.

 

Toshiba have tried to trace where the confusing information comes from, but we have not been successful so far. (Actually, Toshiba is not the source of the information.)

 

In replying to your invitation for your radio program, we are afraid that we must cordially decline the opportunity this time.

 

Just for your reference, I hereby attach below the outline of the 4S syste, OUR next-generation, super-small nuclear reactor system, jointly developed by Toshiba and CRIEPI.

 

As you will see, Unfortunately, it is premature and we are not able to provide detail information about the 4S system at this stage since the expected date of commercialization of the systems is after the mid-2010s.

 

The 4S (Super-safe, Small, and Simple), jointly developed by Toshiba and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), a Japanese electric power industry R&D institute, is a new-type of highly compact nuclear power generation system with a power output of about 10-megawatt (MWe). Due to its innovative design and concept, the 4S can operate without refueling for as long as 30 years, greatly alleviating operating and maintenance costs and enhancing operational safety. This feature positions 4S as a promising alternative power solution for distributed, relatively small-scale power requirements, in regions with limited or no transmission capacity.

 

In 2007, Toshiba initiated the process for preliminary review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the 4S system, a next-generation, super-small nuclear reactor system, with a view to securing commercialization of the system.

 

The targeted date of commercialization of the 4S system is after the mid-2010s.

 

Thank you very much again for your invitation and understanding.

 

Sincerely,

Hiroko Mochida

Toshiba CCO

 

So it looks like the info for a 200Kw reactor is not correct.

 

If anyone would like to check with Toshiba personally, Me Mochida's contact details are:

Hiroko Mochida

Toshiba Corporation

Corporate Communications Office

International Media Relations Group

TOSHIBA CORPORATION 1-1

Shibaura 1-chome

Minato-ku

Tokyo 105-8001

Japan

Tel: +81-(3)3457-2105

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I hate to be a thorn, but I recently listened to an interview on Democracy Now! with Amory Lovins, who:

has been described as “one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers.” He’s also a leading opponent of nuclear power. Amory Lovins is co-founder, chair and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado. He is a consultant physicist, MacArthur Fellow, and recipient of numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award. Lovins advised the energy and other industries in countries around the world, including here in the US. He invented the hybrid Hypercar in ’91 and has written twenty-nine books, including Soft Energy Paths, Natural Capitalism, Small Is Profitable, and Winning the Oil Endgame.

 

Here is what he had to say on the Program.

 

Democracy Now! | Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

 

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Well, talk about nuclear power. Why do you feel it’s not an option, given the oil crisis?

 

AMORY LOVINS: Well, first of all, electricity and oil have essentially nothing to do with each other, and anybody who thinks the contrary is really ignorant about energy. Less than two percent of our electricity is made from oil. Less than two percent of our oil makes electricity. Those numbers are falling. And essentially, all the oil involved is actually the heavy, gooey bottom of the barrel you can’t even make mobility fuels out of anyway.

 

What nuclear would do is displace coal, our most abundant domestic fuel. And this sounds good for climate, but actually, expanding nuclear makes climate change worse, for a very simple reason. Nuclear is incredibly expensive. The costs have just stood up on end lately. Wall Street Journal recently reported that they’re about two to four times the cost that the industry was talking about just a year ago. And the result of that is that if you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about twenty to forty times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas, all kinds of central plans, in the marketplace. And those competitors are efficient use of electricity and what’s called micropower, which is both renewables, except big hydro, and making electricity and heat together, in fact, recent buildings, which takes about half of the money, fuel and carbon of making them separately, as we normally do.

 

So, nuclear cannot actually deliver the climate or the security benefits claimed for it. It’s unrelated to oil. And it’s grossly uneconomic, which means the nuclear revival that we often hear about is not actually happening. It’s a very carefully fabricated illusion. And the reason it isn’t happening is there are no buyers. That is, Wall Street is not putting a penny of private capital into the industry, despite 100-plus percent subsidies.....

 

I am not very knowledgeable on this subject, but I think his concerns should be addressed in this thread.

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I hate to be a thorn, but I recently listened to an interview on Democracy Now! with Amory Lovins, ...

 

 

I listened to him on Charlie Rose last week; I think he makes good points against nuclear power. Here's some of that:

AMORY LOVINS: Again, it’s renewables, other than big hydro, plus co-generating electricity and heat together, usually in industry.

 

In 2006, micropower, for the first time, produced more electricity worldwide than nuclear did. A sixth of the world’s electricity is now micropower, a third of the new electricity. In a dozen industrial countries, micropower makes anywhere from a sixth to over half of all the electricity elsewhere. This is not a fringe activity anymore.

 

China, which has the world’s most ambitious nuclear program, by the end of 2006 had seven times that much capacity in distributed renewables, and they were growing it seven times faster. Take a look at 2007, in which the US or Spain or China added more wind capacity than the world added nuclear capacity. The US added more wind capacity last year than we’ve added coal capacity in the past five years put together.

 

And renewables, other than big hydro, got last year $71 billion of private capital; nuclear, as usual, got zero. It is only bought by central planners with a draw on the public purse. What does this tell you? I mean, what part of the story does anybody who take markets seriously not get?

 

Democracy Now! | Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

 

 

Good call Reasonator. :bow_flowers: :eek:

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Think of it this way: Nuclear Power is the second-worst way in the world to generate electricity. The worst way: ANY fossil-fired plant.

With the advent of computerized controls, all manner of renewable resources can now be employed in myriad schemes to maintain an accurate 60 hz. output onto the grid. And soon, sans grid, straight from your own rooftop or utility closet right into your wall receptacles.

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Think of it this way, nuclear power is the absolute best way to generate electricity.

 

Nay sayers use statistics from old technology to further their rabid antiquated views on nuclear power.

 

There are so many people who have this idea of the nuclear genie killing us all or turning us all into radioactive monsters it is very difficult to to even make these people understand.

 

They grew up on a diet of b movies that portrayed nuclear power as the ultimate evil blamed for everything imaginable that was bad.

 

Staying with these outdated technologies is bad and should be avoided absolutely but to allow these b-movie ideas to drag down the only high intensity power source available to the human race is stupid and short sighted.

 

If you were to use the first jet airliner as a model to prevent any more jet airliners from being built and to make sure everyone rides trains instead of flying you would be in the same situation as the people are trying to beat down nuclear power.

 

Unfortunately these people also have decades of extremely scary and emotional propaganda both official and unofficial to help them achieve their goals. Most of them do not even realize what they are really doing. They have been told what they want to hear for so long the propaganda becomes self reinforcing.

 

Even old style nuclear power plants do not pollute any where near as bad as coal fired power plants. New technology is orders of magnitude better than old technology. I talked to literally hundreds of people who would rather live next to a coal fired power house than live with in a hundred miles of a nuclear power plant. It's just plan silly and it's also the reason so little private money is available for nuclear power plant building.

 

People are simply scared out of their wits by the prospect and the fear is totally irrational. I have already provided links to new types of nuclear power plants so I won't again but if we as a civilization want to move forward at anything other than a snails pace we will need nuclear power, safe modern nuclear power.

 

No small dribs and dabs of disconnected low intensity power sources that production of is farmed out to third world countries due to the inherent pollution released in their manufacture.

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People are simply scared out of their wits by the prospect and the fear is totally irrational. I have already provided links to new types of nuclear power plants so I won't again but if we as a civilization want to move forward at anything other than a snails pace we will need nuclear power, safe modern nuclear power.

 

Perhaps you are right, Moontan, that the stigma ingrained within the majority public mindset detours nuclear industry growth. Amory Lovins (which btw, I highly recommend his book 'Natural Capitalism' [a bit outdated now, but still great]) makes the claim that nuclear is not in proliferation because of market hesitation. That may be the case, but stigma may also play a role. I'm not aware of any studies comparing the two though (stigma and market hesitation, regarding nuclear proliferation).

 

What about Thorium (fast breeder) reactors? The idea is not a "'new' look at nuclear power", but I see a potential benefit with them. Nonetheless, it's not the quick fix that the world needs/wants.

 

We've discussed this here in quite a bit of depth in this thread:

 

http://hypography.com/forums/engineering-applied-science/9290-thorium-reactors-better.html

 

Supplemental thread here:

 

http://hypography.com/forums/physics-mathematics/9301-how-much-energy-does-thorium-contain.html

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Think of it this way, nuclear power is the absolute best way to generate electricity.

 

Nay sayers use statistics from old technology to further their rabid antiquated views on nuclear power.

 

There are so many people who have this idea of the nuclear genie killing us all or turning us all into radioactive monsters it is very difficult to to even make these people understand.

 

They grew up on a diet of b movies that portrayed nuclear power as the ultimate evil blamed for everything imaginable that was bad.

 

Staying with these outdated technologies is bad and should be avoided absolutely but to allow these b-movie ideas to drag down the only high intensity power source available to the human race is stupid and short sighted.

 

If you were to use the first jet airliner as a model to prevent any more jet airliners from being built and to make sure everyone rides trains instead of flying you would be in the same situation as the people are trying to beat down nuclear power.

 

Unfortunately these people also have decades of extremely scary and emotional propaganda both official and unofficial to help them achieve their goals. Most of them do not even realize what they are really doing. They have been told what they want to hear for so long the propaganda becomes self reinforcing.

 

Even old style nuclear power plants do not pollute any where near as bad as coal fired power plants. New technology is orders of magnitude better than old technology. I talked to literally hundreds of people who would rather live next to a coal fired power house than live with in a hundred miles of a nuclear power plant. It's just plan silly and it's also the reason so little private money is available for nuclear power plant building.

 

People are simply scared out of their wits by the prospect and the fear is totally irrational. I have already provided links to new types of nuclear power plants so I won't again but if we as a civilization want to move forward at anything other than a snails pace we will need nuclear power, safe modern nuclear power.

 

No small dribs and dabs of disconnected low intensity power sources that production of is farmed out to third world countries due to the inherent pollution released in their manufacture.

 

 

Most of the time, the arguments are usually revolving around fear of nuclear weapons (completely preposterous as the uranium for weapons has to be much more enriched before it can be usable as such), or a Chernobyl-like disaster.

 

Overall though, less people have died from a nuclear power plant than most any other accident that takes place. And regardless, the use of nuclear power in general is on the rise everywhere else in the world.

 

Although, I'm still waiting for the fusion reactors to come online, then our energy problems will be solved forever.

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I don't think Avery Lovins' objections had anything to do with fear of death or disaster, his were primarily economic. He is convinced that there will be no substancial movement toward nuclear power because implementation costs are too high, particularly now, and nobody is investing in it.

 

Personally, I don't know if that will change in the future and nuclear energy may become a significant contributer. But I still tend to think that we should push toward more passive solutions that are innovative and include some serious reductions in waste. Our infrastructure is seriouly out dated and inefficient, as are our industries' methods of transporting products and goods.

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Most of the time, the arguments are usually revolving around fear of nuclear weapons (completely preposterous as the uranium for weapons has to be much more enriched before it can be usable as such), or a Chernobyl-like disaster.

 

Overall though, less people have died from a nuclear power plant than most any other accident that takes place. And regardless, the use of nuclear power in general is on the rise everywhere else in the world.

 

Although, I'm still waiting for the fusion reactors to come online, then our energy problems will be solved forever.

 

Unless you are talking about aneutronic fusion you will have waste problems as well. New technology fission plants can be made small safe and fast and they can be built now. Thorium reactors are probably the future of fission But we do have choices and until people realize the old propaganda of the evil nuclear genie is false it will be an uphill battle. I don't think that new low intensity power sources are bad or unusable they just do not provide power in the quantities we as a civilization really need. many industries are very energy intensive, solar just won't do for these industries. I would like to see solar used as an option for people who live far from a easy source of power but big cities in hot or very cold regions would be hard pressed to use solar as it's only power source. eliminating the use of hydrocarbons would be much easier if you used nuclear and maybe used solar around the edges. It's easy to say we need to rebuild our infrastructure but that will take many years and many times as much money as developing safe nuclear power. And we can and should be changing to a more efficient infrastructure as we go anyway.

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