Portable Nuclear Reactor
Picture the following: A small hot tub size nuclear reactor which is placed near tar sands and oil shale sites. The
main cost of extracting oil from these sites is energy. With cheap nuclear energy, oil could be flowing at inexpensive
rates. There is twice as much oil tied up in oil shale in the US West than all of Saudi Arabia.
To access the estimated 500+ billion barrels of recoverable oil in US oil shale fields, Hyperion takes huge amounts of
natural gas to provide the heat and power needed to extract the heavy oil from the tar takes huge amounts of natural
gas to provide the heat and power needed to extract the heavy oil from the tar sands. The cheaper the energy, the
more percentage oil can be extracted from the tar sands and the lower the cost of the oil recovered. Also picture
replacing the coal fired portion of electrical power plants with a nuclear heat source. No more mercury in our fish.
Nearly 2.0 × 10^12 barrels of conventional oil and 5.0 × 10^12 barrels of heavy oil will remain in reservoirs worldwide
after conventional recovery methods have been exhausted.
The following modified from:
http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/outtake-112107-nuke-to-the-future.php
New technology takes on energy crisis.
The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It’s shaped like a sake cup, filled with a uranium hydride core
and surrounded by a hydrogen.
Invented by scientist Otis Peterson, Hyperion’s patent for a hydride reactor is still pending.
Encase it in concrete, truck it to a site, bury it underground, hook it up to a steam turbine and one would generate
enough electricity to power a 25,000-home community for at least five years.
The company Hyperion Power Generation was formed in October 2007 to develop the nuclear fission reactor at Los
Alamos National Laboratory and take it into the private sector. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a
factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors.
Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn’t like to think of its product as a
“reactor.” It’s self-contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn’t require a human operator.
“In fact, we prefer to call it a ‘drive’ or a ‘battery’ or a ‘module’ in that it’s so safe,” Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah
Blackwell says. “Like you don’t open a double-A battery, you just plug it in and it does its chemical thing inside of it.
You don’t ever open it or mess with it.”
LANL scientist Otis Peterson filed the patent for the nuclear fission reactor in 2003. In theory, the reactor uses
uranium crystals and hydrogen isotopes to create an internal, self-regulating balance. Because it’s so new, anti-
nuclear power activists aren’t quite sure what to make of it yet. But ‘skeptical’ is perhaps too gentle a word for their
initial reactions to Hyperion’s claims of a “clean” energy source.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer is a group of 700 labs, set up by Congress to promote
“technology transfer” activities between the public and private sectors, honored Peterson’s invention as an
“Outstanding Technology Development” in October 2003 at its conference in Hawaii. Now retired from LANL,
Peterson has become the chief scientist for Hyperion, Blackwell says.
Blackwell is a director of Purple Mountain Ventures, a self-described “adventure capital” firm specializing in
commercial development of LANL technology. Purple Mountain also is the financial backer behind The Company for
Information Visualization and Analysis (CIVA), a local company developing LANL pandemic modeling software.
Hyperion’s reactor, though, has the potential to solve the energy crisis, according to Blackwell.
“The lab is doing a lot of work on oil shales and oil sands, but there’s no way to get power to those facilities,”
Blackwell says. “So, this nuclear battery would be brought in and that would provide the power to run a small city of
industrial use.”
Blackwell also envisions that the battery could be used at military bases, as well as in the developing world, where
poverty is a product of a lack of electricity and clean drinking water. This week, Hyperion meets with its first potential
clients, but Blackwell hopes to approach the United Nations and international humanitarian groups.
So far, though, anti-nuclear advocates don’t buy the claims advertised on Hyperion’s Web site
(www.hyperionpowergeneration.com).
The nuclear device uses uranium hydride crystals and hydrogen isotopes to create an internal, self-regulating
balance.
Thorium hydrides could also be used. A Thorium molten salt reactor could achieve nearly 100% burnup of the fuel.
There is a potential to use these reactors alongside current reactors where the "spent fuel" from current reactors
could be used in these new reactors.
Here is a quote from the patent for the Hyperion reactor. It is different from regular nuclear reactors but it is not like
the radioisotope thermal generators.
The present invention is based on and takes advantage of the physical properties of a fissile metal hydride, such as
uranium hydride, which serves as a combination fuel and moderator. The invention is self-stabilizing and requires no
moving mechanical components to control nuclear criticality. In contrast with customary designs, the control of the
nuclear activity is achieved through the temperature driven mobility of the hydrogen isotope contained in the hydride.
If the core temperature increases above a set point, the hydrogen isotope dissociates from the hydride and escapes
out of the core, the moderation drops and the power production decreases. If the temperature drops, the hydrogen
isotope is again associated by the fissile metal hydride and the process is reversed.
They have many good features Hyperion also offers a 70% reduction in operating costs (based on costs for field-
generation of steam in oil-shale recovery operations), from $11 per million BTU for natural gas to $3 per million BTU
for Hyperion. The possibility of mass production, operation and standardization of design, allows for significant
savings. Because of the inherent properties of uranium hydride, Hyperion is "cleaner," producing only a tiny fraction
of the waste produced by other types of reactors. Water is not used in the process, so there is no danger of pollution
to local water bodies.
Compare Candu reactors: http://www.candu.org/candu_reactors.html
Check out Thorium reactors: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19758/
Thorium Power's fuel cycle is much better than the CANDU thorium fuel cycle. In the Thorium Power fuel cycle,
Uranium-233 is burned as fuel in the reactor as it is being produced. In the CANDU thorium process, or any other
thorium process, the Uranium-233 is a waste byproduct of the fuel cycle. Since Uranium-233 is valuable, it can be
reprocessed and re-introduced as fuel into the reactor. Reprocessing is a very expensive proposition – which is the
real reason why there isn’t a single thorium fuel reactor in the world. Thorium Power’s process is plain common sense
– and well ahead of any other thorium-based concept.
Discussion of Thorium
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm
Next
Picture the following: A small hot tub size nuclear reactor which is placed near tar sands and oil shale sites. The
main cost of extracting oil from these sites is energy. With cheap nuclear energy, oil could be flowing at inexpensive
rates. There is twice as much oil tied up in oil shale in the US West than all of Saudi Arabia.
To access the estimated 500+ billion barrels of recoverable oil in US oil shale fields, Hyperion takes huge amounts of
natural gas to provide the heat and power needed to extract the heavy oil from the tar takes huge amounts of natural
gas to provide the heat and power needed to extract the heavy oil from the tar sands. The cheaper the energy, the
more percentage oil can be extracted from the tar sands and the lower the cost of the oil recovered. Also picture
replacing the coal fired portion of electrical power plants with a nuclear heat source. No more mercury in our fish.
Nearly 2.0 × 10^12 barrels of conventional oil and 5.0 × 10^12 barrels of heavy oil will remain in reservoirs worldwide
after conventional recovery methods have been exhausted.
The following modified from:
http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/outtake-112107-nuke-to-the-future.php
New technology takes on energy crisis.
The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It’s shaped like a sake cup, filled with a uranium hydride core
and surrounded by a hydrogen.
Invented by scientist Otis Peterson, Hyperion’s patent for a hydride reactor is still pending.
Encase it in concrete, truck it to a site, bury it underground, hook it up to a steam turbine and one would generate
enough electricity to power a 25,000-home community for at least five years.
The company Hyperion Power Generation was formed in October 2007 to develop the nuclear fission reactor at Los
Alamos National Laboratory and take it into the private sector. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a
factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors.
Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn’t like to think of its product as a
“reactor.” It’s self-contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn’t require a human operator.
“In fact, we prefer to call it a ‘drive’ or a ‘battery’ or a ‘module’ in that it’s so safe,” Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah
Blackwell says. “Like you don’t open a double-A battery, you just plug it in and it does its chemical thing inside of it.
You don’t ever open it or mess with it.”
LANL scientist Otis Peterson filed the patent for the nuclear fission reactor in 2003. In theory, the reactor uses
uranium crystals and hydrogen isotopes to create an internal, self-regulating balance. Because it’s so new, anti-
nuclear power activists aren’t quite sure what to make of it yet. But ‘skeptical’ is perhaps too gentle a word for their
initial reactions to Hyperion’s claims of a “clean” energy source.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer is a group of 700 labs, set up by Congress to promote
“technology transfer” activities between the public and private sectors, honored Peterson’s invention as an
“Outstanding Technology Development” in October 2003 at its conference in Hawaii. Now retired from LANL,
Peterson has become the chief scientist for Hyperion, Blackwell says.
Blackwell is a director of Purple Mountain Ventures, a self-described “adventure capital” firm specializing in
commercial development of LANL technology. Purple Mountain also is the financial backer behind The Company for
Information Visualization and Analysis (CIVA), a local company developing LANL pandemic modeling software.
Hyperion’s reactor, though, has the potential to solve the energy crisis, according to Blackwell.
“The lab is doing a lot of work on oil shales and oil sands, but there’s no way to get power to those facilities,”
Blackwell says. “So, this nuclear battery would be brought in and that would provide the power to run a small city of
industrial use.”
Blackwell also envisions that the battery could be used at military bases, as well as in the developing world, where
poverty is a product of a lack of electricity and clean drinking water. This week, Hyperion meets with its first potential
clients, but Blackwell hopes to approach the United Nations and international humanitarian groups.
So far, though, anti-nuclear advocates don’t buy the claims advertised on Hyperion’s Web site
(www.hyperionpowergeneration.com).
The nuclear device uses uranium hydride crystals and hydrogen isotopes to create an internal, self-regulating
balance.
Thorium hydrides could also be used. A Thorium molten salt reactor could achieve nearly 100% burnup of the fuel.
There is a potential to use these reactors alongside current reactors where the "spent fuel" from current reactors
could be used in these new reactors.
Here is a quote from the patent for the Hyperion reactor. It is different from regular nuclear reactors but it is not like
the radioisotope thermal generators.
The present invention is based on and takes advantage of the physical properties of a fissile metal hydride, such as
uranium hydride, which serves as a combination fuel and moderator. The invention is self-stabilizing and requires no
moving mechanical components to control nuclear criticality. In contrast with customary designs, the control of the
nuclear activity is achieved through the temperature driven mobility of the hydrogen isotope contained in the hydride.
If the core temperature increases above a set point, the hydrogen isotope dissociates from the hydride and escapes
out of the core, the moderation drops and the power production decreases. If the temperature drops, the hydrogen
isotope is again associated by the fissile metal hydride and the process is reversed.
They have many good features Hyperion also offers a 70% reduction in operating costs (based on costs for field-
generation of steam in oil-shale recovery operations), from $11 per million BTU for natural gas to $3 per million BTU
for Hyperion. The possibility of mass production, operation and standardization of design, allows for significant
savings. Because of the inherent properties of uranium hydride, Hyperion is "cleaner," producing only a tiny fraction
of the waste produced by other types of reactors. Water is not used in the process, so there is no danger of pollution
to local water bodies.
Compare Candu reactors: http://www.candu.org/candu_reactors.html
Check out Thorium reactors: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19758/
Thorium Power's fuel cycle is much better than the CANDU thorium fuel cycle. In the Thorium Power fuel cycle,
Uranium-233 is burned as fuel in the reactor as it is being produced. In the CANDU thorium process, or any other
thorium process, the Uranium-233 is a waste byproduct of the fuel cycle. Since Uranium-233 is valuable, it can be
reprocessed and re-introduced as fuel into the reactor. Reprocessing is a very expensive proposition – which is the
real reason why there isn’t a single thorium fuel reactor in the world. Thorium Power’s process is plain common sense
– and well ahead of any other thorium-based concept.
Discussion of Thorium
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm
Next
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