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Toshiba Micro Nuclear Reactor For Home Fission
The new Toshiba Micro Nuclear reactor will produce 200 kW of energy for forty years; it requires no maintenance and is totally automatic.
(Toshiba home nuclear reactor)
Just twenty feet long by six feet wide, the Toshiba Home Nuclear fission reactor is just what you need to charge up your new electric car. When the power runs out, they truck it away.
Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
This is probably a variation on Toshiba's 4S reactor (Super Safe, Small and Simple), which they proposed as the power source for the Galena Nuclear Power Plant in Galena, Alaska, in 2004. The somewhat larger reactor was to be placed in a sealed vault 100 feet underground.
This really reminds me of the power stations from Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. Ranging in size from walnut (powering personal items like force-shields) to great buildings (for powering cities), they were similarly totally automatic.
Via NextEnergyNews.com.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/18/2007)
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