

Hyperion’s Nuclear-In-A-Box Ready By 2013 - robg
http://earth2tech.com/2008/08/01/hyperions-nuclear-in-a-box-ready-by-2013/

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DenisM

      each being able to generate 70 megawatts of 
      heat energy, or 27 megawatts of electricity 
      from a steam turbine
    

So we will have 43 Megawatts of excess heat dissipated by a device size of a
hot tub. That'll work. Not.

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gaius
Note that the use of small mobile nuclear reactors is 40 years old now
(submarines) - that's a lot of time to refine a technology.

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patrickg-zill
I would think that datacenters would love to have such a power unit. Two of
them could easily back up each other, allowing for 100% power uptime without
the use of lead-acid batteries which are expensive, heavy, require replacement
every 3 years, etc.

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sown
Hrm...santa fe, NM....I hope this company invests pretty heavily in security
for their facilities before ELF or ALF decide to pay them a visit...

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ajross
This _has_ to be a hoax, right? Let's bury an unattended box of hyper-toxic
radioactive material in a box "transportable by truck" in every neighborhood
where you can get to it just by digging. Yeah, that's a good idea..

...

Never mind. It's a hoax. Dig out your old Battletech stuff and check the about
page.

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jobeirne
Better yet, let's sell anyone in the general populace a two-ton box of metal
they can propel in any given direction at speeds up to 120 mph.

Wait, nevermind. That'll never take off.

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ajross
Can you poison a thousand people with a minivan?

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radu_floricica
A thousand? Why think small? Take a septic tank and dive in a lake that's used
as a watersource.

Sorry for the metaphor, but nuclear _is_ much cleaner then most things we use.
and even if it spills, yes, there will be more cancers in the area but it's on
the order of magnitude of any other industrial installations. You can't make
anything without polluting some. Nuclear does it less then most.

~~~
ajross
No, that's simply not correct. Reactor innards aren't just fuel: it's the
fission products that are dangerous. These things are incredibly toxic. It's
true that "nuclear is clean" when you view the picture from outside the
reactor. But that all assumes no idiot is going to dig one up and open it.
That's easy enough to ensure when the reactor is a giant guarded facility or a
military vessel. The suggestion here is to bury it under urban areas.

~~~
radu_floricica
I doubt it's going to be either in urban areas or without any supervision. In
urban areas you already have access to the grid.

Also there will be lots of metal and concrete, and I imagine some big locks.
And it will be close/under either a power plant or a heat exchanger, so it'll
be anything but abandoned.

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t0pj
_"Phenomenal Cosmic Power! Itty-bitty Living Space."_

 _"Where is John Galt?"_ , indeed.

