Micro-nuclear reactors that only take up 1 room?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Article

I take this with a grain of salt. Is such a thing even possible, and since when has Toshiba been involved with nuclear power?

[Hawkwings]

Check out this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S

Toshiba's been doing this kind of work for a while.

[Patrick Degan]

I want one. Having your own nuclear reactor in the garage would be so cool.

[General Zod]

I want one. How much?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I want one too; it'll sure solve the water-heater problems in this building. Oh, and selling the extra Leccy would be nice.

[Flagg]

I cannot be trusted with one of those. I want several.

[Sea Skimmer]

This is nothing that challenging, except to make it cost effective. Nuclear submarine NR-1 displaces only about 300 tons and was completed back in 1969 with a reactor that had a pressure vessel about the size of a 55 gallon drum.

[Darth Wong]

Article

I take this with a grain of salt. Is such a thing even possible, and since when has Toshiba been involved with nuclear power?

A reactor need not be bulky. It's all the support equipment surrounding it that tends to be bulky. Things like turbines and generators and coolant systems etc. In a micro-scale device which employs a more direct (but less scalable) method of cooling it and converting its heat output to electricity, that support hardware could be considerably less bulky.

Most people don't realize what a tiny fraction of a typical nuclear power plant is the reactor itself. I've seen a 1GW calandria up close, and it's surprisingly small. But the turbines and generators and piping systems are gigantic.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

That's pretty cool, then. Would one of these be feasible on a neighborhood scale like Toshiba says?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Is such a thing even possible,

As I recall, the Soviets built some that were a bit larger than a man for space. And I mean real reactors, not the simple nuclear decay based power sources you see in most nuclear powered probes.

[Shinova]

UC Irvine supposedly has its own nuclear reactor for research purposes or something; I suppose it follows some similar principles as this one.

[Flagg]

That's pretty cool, then. Would one of these be feasible on a neighborhood scale like Toshiba says?

I don't see why not as long as everyone "goes in" on it. I could see neighborhood and condo/apartment associations maybe taking out loans to have these installed and part of the agreement being that all members pay a certain amount each month towards paying off the loan in lieu of a power bill.

I could also see apartment complexes having them with the landlord simply including electricity in the rent. Especially if these really are self sustainable for upwards of 40 years.

[Darth Wong]

I don't remember the exact dimensions of a CANDU 1GW reactor, but think of something more like a cube van than a building. And that's a lot of watts.

[Tanasinn]

Environmentalist hand-wringers would probably shit the bed before letting something like this become readily available. Ironic, really.

Quite cool, nonetheless.

[Gil Hamilton]

I don't remember the exact dimensions of a CANDU 1GW reactor, but think of something more like a cube van than a building. And that's a lot of watts.

Aren't the turbines in a nuclear powerplant generally the size of a good sized house?

[Sea Skimmer]

As I recall, the Soviets built some that were a bit larger than a man for space. And I mean real reactors, not the simple nuclear decay based power sources you see in most nuclear powered probes.

31 of them in fact, while the US made 1 launch of a live reactor as well. The Soviets needed them to power big radar satellites for ocean surveillance. Ironically despite the use of nuclear power sources these satellites actually had very short lifespan. The satellites was supposed to fire a rocket when it became useless to push the reactor into a much higher orbit, but this didn’t always work and at least two of the things crashed. The others are all now leaking radioactive coolant, drops of which are now form a major hazard (from impacts, not the radiation) to other satellites.

IIRC weight of the reactor proper was about 300kg.

Aren't the turbines in a nuclear powerplant generally the size of a good sized house?

Yup, just take a look here. The doors on the right give an idea of the scale of the thing. But of course those turbines also typically put out better then 1,000,000shp and IIRC the record for a single turbine set is over 2,000,000shp

[Darth Wong]

I don't remember the exact dimensions of a CANDU 1GW reactor, but think of something more like a cube van than a building. And that's a lot of watts.

Aren't the turbines in a nuclear powerplant generally the size of a good sized house?

NGS turbines are gigantic multi-stage affairs: the steam goes into a relatively small-diameter turbine at high pressure, and as it experiences pressure loss it moves to progressively larger and larger turbine blades. But if you actually walk through the plant you can't really see the turbines or get a subjective grasp of their size, because they're inside these huge assemblies. The same goes for the generator; it's difficult to get a grasp of how large it is, because you can never see more than a small piece of it on any given floor. If you walk around on the top floor, you can see this huge bulge which is the top of the reactor, and I don't remember how many floors it extends through.

Unfortunately, it's been so many years since I've worked with those diagrams that I don't recall any specific dimensions. Besides, I worked in commissioning, not design. So it wasn't my "baby", so to speak. Mind you, even if it was my baby, I probably would have forgotten specific dimensions by now anyway. I was never good at committing that sort of thing to long-term memory.

[Havok]

Why memorize when you can write it down.

I dunno, call me a pessimist, but I don't think we, ESPECIALLY US, are ready for the neighborhood reactor.

[Lord Revan]

Well there's research reactor in one the buildings for the technical physics and mathematics deparment in the university I study in (Helsinki University of Technology) and from what I've heard (I've never seen the thing myself) it's no larger then a swimming pool, but I've been in said building.

[dragon]

How big are the reactors on board a sub?

[Phantasee]

The University of Alberta has a research reactor in the basement of the Dentistry/Pharmacy building. Nothing about the reactor itself is up on the website yet, however, so I couldn't give you an exact size.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~slowpoke/

[Glocksman]

Color me cynical, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before the utility companies and the politicians in their pockets ever allow devices such as this to be legal in the US.

I can already imagine the 'OMG! TERRAR w/NUKES' propaganda.

[FSTargetDrone]

UC Irvine supposedly has its own nuclear reactor for research purposes or something; I suppose it follows some similar principles as this one.

Yep, Irvine has a 250 Kilowatt reactor:

The UCI Nuclear Reactor

is operated by the Department of Chemistry for use in radiochemistry applications. The reactor is a 250 kilowatt steady-state power Mark I TRIGA reactor built by General Atomics. Pulsing is possible to about 1000 megawatts if needed. TRIGA reactors are water and zirconium hydride moderated to be especially safe for training and research purposes. Fuel is uranium enriched to 20% in U-235. The reactor first became critical in November 1969. The facility specializes in neutron activation analysis (NAA) using thermal and epi-thermal neutrons. Past work has included measurements on the JFK assassination bullet lead(1), mercury levels in ancient specimens of swordfish, and tuna(2), sculptures in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles(3), ancient bones(4), samples of mosaics(5), and tracing manganese pollutants (6,8). Work is also been done to test systems and detectors for homeland security screening applications (7,9). The facility has provided short-lived radioactive isotopes on occasion for tracer studies in industry and medicine.

Wiki listing of Civilian Research/Test Reactors:

Aerotest Operations Inc. San Ramon, California TRIGA Mark I
Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute Bethesda, Maryland TRIGA Mark F
Cornell University Ithaca, New York TRIGA Mark II
Dow Chemical Company Midland, Michigan TRIGA Mark I
General Electric Company Sunol, California "Nuclear Test"
Idaho State University Pocatello, Idaho AGN-201 #103 0.05 kW 1967
Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas TRIGA Mark II 250 kW 1962
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts Tank Type HWR Reflected (MITR-II) 5 MW 1958 -
National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Maryland TRIGA Mark I
North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina Pulstar 1 MW 1973 -
Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio Pool (modified Lockheed) [13] 500 kW 1961
Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon TRIGA Mark II (OSTR) 1.1 MW 1967 -
Penn State University University Park, Pennsylvania TRIGA BNR Reactor 1.1 MW 1955 -
Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana Lockheed 1 kW 1962
Reed College Portland, OR TRIGA Mark I (RRR) 250 kW 1968 -
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York Critical Assembly
Rhode Island Atomic Energy Commission Narrangansett, Rhode Island GE Pool
Texas A&M University College Station, TX AGN-201M #106 - TRIGA Mark I (two reactors) 5 W, 1 MW
University of Arizona Tucson, AZ TRIGA Mark I 110 kW 1958
University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, California TRIGA Mark III (Shut Down)
University of California-Davis Sacramento, California TRIGA, McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center 2 MW August 13, 1998 -
University of California, Irvine Irvine, California TRIGA Mark I 250 kW 1969
University of Florida Gainesville, Florida Argonaut (UFTR) 100 kW 1959 -
University of Maryland, College Park College Park, Maryland TRIGA Mark I
University of Massachusetts Lowell Lowell, Massachusetts Pool 1 MW
University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Pool, Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) 2 MW 1957 - 2003
University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri General Electric tank type UMRR 10 MW 1966 -
University of Missouri–Rolla Rolla, Missouri Pool
University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico AGN-201M $112
University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas TRIGA Mark II
University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah TRIGA Mark I
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin TRIGA Mark I
U.S. Geological Survey Denver, Colorado TRIGA Mark I
U.S. Veterans Administration Omaha, Nebraska TRIGA Mark I
Washington State University Pullman, Washington TRIGA Mark I
Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, Massachusetts GE

Princeton used to operate a Tokamak reactor, but it shut down in 1997:

After 15 years of operation, during which its compressed hydrogen fuel reached a temperature 30 times hotter than the core of the sun, the mighty fusion test reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory was being shut down yesterday for the last time.

With the reactor's demise, the result of a cut in Federal financing, a half-century-old dream of generating cheap and inexhaustible energy from fusion faced an uncertain future.

Experiments in hydrogen fusion, the process that powers the sun, will continue at Princeton and at other laboratories in the United States, Europe and Japan, but Princeton's Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor was the most powerful machine of its type in the world and was regarded as the flagship of fusion research.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Article

I take this with a grain of salt. Is such a thing even possible, and since when has Toshiba been involved with nuclear power?

Actually, I think Toshiba bought Westinghouse...

[Sea Skimmer]

How big are the reactors on board a sub?

Depends on the size of the sub, but a typical SSN would have a reactor pressure vessel that’s a cylinder of about 10 x 20ft. The compartment that holds the thing would be much larger of course, and overall machinery takes up a very large portion, often more then half, of a submarines entire internal volume. Submarine and other naval reactors have much better power to weight/volume ratios then power reactors on land however. This is because they run on uranium with very high U-235 enrichment levels, about 90% the case of USN. Land power reactors usually run on fuel with about 2% enrichment. Uranium which has not been enriched for comparison, is about .71% U-235.