|
Hyperion Nuclear Batteries Wednesday, December 26, 2007 - Roni Barr Home >> News >> General Technology   
|
|
|
The Los Alamos based company Hyperion Power Generation is developing a new power source called the Hyperion Hydride Reactor, a sealed fission reactor that can supply power to a small community. Although the portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub, when it's hooked up to a steam turbine, the reactor can generate enough electricity to power a community of 25,000 homes for at least five years. As it is self-contained and involves no moving parts, the reactor doesn’t require a human operator and is considered "extremely safe". Some experts, however, are still questioning the logic of using even this relatively safe kind of nuclear energy. These experts are worried about the pollution created in the process of extracting the radioactive ore, and by the storage problems of the spent nuclear fuel.
|
||||||
|
As water is not used in the process, there is no danger of polluting the local water sources. The Hyperion does not produce any greenhouse gases and produces only a tiny fraction of the waste produced by other types of reactors, making it relatively “cleaner”. The energy generated by a single Hyperion Hydride Reactor is approximately 27 MW. This is more than five times the output of the strongest wind turbine in the world, which measures 120-meters (394-feet) in height and has a 61.5-meter (200 feet) long rotor blade. However, an important advantage of the Hyperion Hydride Reactor over 'green' power sources is that unlike wind turbines or solar cells, it can continue to supply electricity constantly and will not stop producing energy when the wind stops or when there is no sunshine.
In 2006, TFOT covered a new concept for developing a battery-like device with a core of (radioactive) americium 242. Scientists in Israel suggested that the device be used in the International Space Station. More recently, TFOT covered the Japanese Space Solar Power Systems Project aimed at creating the world’s first space based power generation system. To learn more about the Hyperion Hydride Reactor, check out the Hyperion Power Generation website. |
||||||
|
| Related Pictures |
|
Brain-Actuated Wheelchair |
|
Sony Hybrid Fuel Cell |
| Related Articles |
|
CES 2008 Innovations Coverage |
|
2008 In Technology |
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
Sure would be nice if there were a lick of information in the article. There\'s essentially nothing about the internals of the reactor itself. What are the fuel materials? Any notion about costs? When can we expect to see an installation? A pilot? Anything? The Hyperion web site doesn\'t have any more info then the this article. |
|||
|
|||
|
Great. Unmanned nuclear devices lying unprotected at the side of the road like phone switch boxes. No way this ends badly. |
|||
|
|||
|
The fuel used is uranium hydride. They wouldn\'t be sitting by the side of the road, they would be completely buried. |
|||
|
|||
|
I E-Mailed your Hyperion Web site to every Ontario Member of Parliament, asking them to evaluate the feasability of the system. I have not received any replies from them to date . I wish to follow up with them but need more information from you.I would like more detail as to the MW. costs when the entire system is set up and a comparison to other systems such as the Candu or other US and European systems. Yours Tony Oliver |
|||
|
|||
|
Have it buried under the helipad of a hospital, the parking lot of a police station, or center field at your local pro staduim. |
|||
|
|||
| Is it possible to scale down the size the HR? |
