Mini Nukes go on sale in 5 years!

[Brugdor]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=13389

Miniature Nuclear Reactors to be on Sale Within 5 Years
Michael Asher (Blog) - November 10, 2008 5:28 AM

The reactor would be installed underground.  (Source: Hyperion)
Hyperion, Toshiba, others, race to produce "personal" nuclear power.

Using technology licensed from the U.S. government, an Arizona-based company is planning to bring a new generation of miniature nuclear reactors to market. The Hyperion Hydride Reactor is not much larger than a hot tub, is totally sealed and self-operating, has no moving parts and, beyond refueling, requires no maintenance of any sort. The reactor will output 27MW, enough to power a community of 20,000 homes, says Hyperion Energy, makers of the new reactor. The first models will roll off the assembly line in five years.

More at link

[Tank]

Some japs were working on a similar thing a couple years back (linked here too, I think?) that was just slightly smaller, energy for a single block, but didn't need refueling either. aka a single-use reactor with, I think, 80 years of energy.

Regardless, it's really cool and I hope the idiot lefties in these parts don't start chaining themselves to my garden when I buy one of them things to sell cheap-ass energy ^^

[Swash]

If they get their price tag down low enough though, it could be possible for a community/local council/whatever to pool together to buy one.  A couple of hundred dollars per household and they've freed themselves from the national grid for 7 years.

And...figuring on 5c per kw-h (the cheapest commercial rate I could find), the power the reactor puts out would cost just shy of $83 million.  Not a bad saving, even at the $25 million they're charging for the reactor right now.  The big power companies could be looking at some domestic competition soon.

That is of course unless my figuring is way off, which is possible.  Even likely.