hyperion
Your Own Private Nuclear Reactor
Alternative fuels be damned, what’s wrong with good old fashioned nuclear power? OK to be fair that’s not exactly the message coming from Hyperion Power Generation. Hyperion, along with Los Alamos National Labs, has developed somewhat of a personal generator that can be shipped right to your backyard and generate more power than you could possibly use. That is if your “person” can afford the $25 Million price tag (USD). Your very own mini nuclear fission reactor comes sealed with enough fuel to power 20,000 typical U.S. households and according to Hyperion, the units overall cost per watt is lower than existing fossil fuels or alternative fuels currently available.
Read the full press release from Hyperion.
Here’s the scoop. Each reactor module is roughly the size of a hottub. It comes factory sealed and is designed to stay sealed. There are no moving parts and thus minimal to no maintenance required. Modules can even be chained together to provide more power for larger applications. The amount of waste after 5 years is roughly the size of a softball and the waste itself can be reused via fuel recycling to further reduce environmental impact. A side benefit of the generating process is it can also be used to purify water – a double bonus in remote/rugged situations.
On the safety front, Hyperion claims the amount of fissionable material in each module is so small that even if exposed the fuel cools immediately avoiding any kind of explosion or emergency.
This has interesting applications for communities, remote sites and super wealthy folks like Tony Stark. Talk about a new target for the “not in my backyard” crowd, though!
Maybe Ghostbusters-style proton accelerator backpacks are closer to reality than we thought?
Update: Will Boulder, CO be an early leader in nuclear energy alternatives?
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