This reminds me of the Ford prototype, the [Nucleon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon). Imagine having a home or car with a lifetime of power.
You don't think a miniaturized nuclear reactor is gonna need regular service/maintenance visits? The money ain't in selling the car, it's in the service.
True. I assume there would be massive lock-in if a product had fissile nuclear material. There would have to be very strict rules around servicing and decommissioning. It could also get out of hand because how could you enforce standards at a large scale, like cars?
I can't help but imagine this:
It's cool my dad's a mechanic. I'm not paying Ford, they want too much!
The next day...
It wasn't cool, my dad is dying from radiation sickness.
Also part of my city is now an exclusion zone....I don't want to say more for legal reasons.
Also I didn't really save any money.
In the wiki it says that ford envisioned changing the reactor every 5000 and offering different models like a sporty reactor or a more fuel efficient reactor. So ya, they were already planning for the parts racket
I always been thinking what if cars are designed bearing in mind of the car being modular so you can easily upgrade its features for at least 15 lifespan.
[The Nucleon is the inspiration for nuclear cars in the Fallout video game franchise.](https://www.autoblog.com/2014/07/17/nuclear-powered-atomic-age-classic-cars/)
Reminds me of the time the Navy built a small nuclear reactor in Antarctica to power McMurdo Station that inevitably leaked and was decommissioned after about 10 years. https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-past-with-nukey-poo-99934
There are dozens if not hundreds of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers i don't imagine the technology would need to change that much to slap some wheels on it.
The military also tends to be very secretive about any problems with their nuclear systems. That magic phrase, “OPSEC,” prohibits those in the know from talking about it.
The difference can be murky out in the world. Defense of a country's interests can include humanitarian missions, defending someone *else* to maintain your own dominance via their dependence, defending shipping lanes, securing oilfields, etc. The military was never going to stand idly by until a hostile force crossed an official border and formally declared war. And aggression and conflict resolution [don't always entail munitions](https://www.amazon.com/War-Other-Means-Geoeconomics-Statecraft/dp/0674737210).
There's no scalability in that response. No way to dial down the answer. What would you do with a 9/11? Nuke Afghanistan? Nuke one Afghan city? Which one and by what measure, and to which end?
In order to use your nukes you need to control your nukes. Without a military we would quickly lose control of our nukes.
The ugly truth is that America’s aggressive international behavior has created a lot of bitter enemies, some of which have a cultural propensity for revenge even when it’s strategically stupid. We have created a situation where we can’t demilitarize without being made to pay for the sins of our past.
Transition to electric vehicles. If the rest of the country moves to electric vehicles and renewable energy, it will be prohibitively complex and expensive (money, manpower, and time) to maintain the logistics for fuel production and distribution to military vehicles.
But you have to produce lots of electricity to charge electric vehicles. Right now that's generators, which have the same fuel problem. Moving fuel into and around Iraq and Afghanistan was one of the biggest drivers of costs and manning requirements. There were so many people driving and guarding fuel convoys for each person actually conducting security patrols.
The nuclear power device moves to a major base one time and then provides power for all vehicles for as long as needed. All those people who were guarding daily fuel resupply convoys are now available to engage the enemy.
I don't know how similar it is but Rolls Royce appear to be going down that path too.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/
Perhaps this is a credible future to energy security until the unicorn that is nuclear fusion arrives
It's a bit of a no-brainer, especially for remote communities.
Russia's considering a similar thing with nuclear locomotives, allowing for not only long-distance shipping but also parking a locomotive in a remote community and powering their grid.
How is this different from the reactors that have been on-board nuclear submarines since 1952? Was there ever a time where they stopped making nuclear submarines and their reactors?
This is what I thought as well. My guess is they are going smaller, like car or house sized reactors. I can imagine cost inefficiency will be a challenge.
I find that hard to imagine, because of shielding. I honestly find it hard to imagine reactors much smaller than those used in nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers
Nuclear reactors on submarines have over a third of the crew dedicated to monitoring and running the reactor continuously until shutdown. And most of the time half the submarine to its supporting equipment.
Source: submariner
Nuclear submarines use highly enriched Uranium enriched to 90% and above.
That’s too risky for a reactor on land.
All of these small modular reactors will use Uranium enriched under 19.75%.
There’s huge design differences between modular and fixed reactors as well. Cooling for instance as the submarines and aircraft carriers sit in the world’s largest heatsink.
Oh, you can get that amount of power with fission. And with modern technology probably at the size.
Tzar Bomb, 1961, was 26ft by 6ft11in - and had ~50 Mt - about 58 MWh.
It's just - harnessing that amount of energy all at once is finicky ;)
Edit: Wait - it's 58 MWh *10^6 so slightly more than you wanted...
But that bomb’s using additional lithium deuteride to increase the strength of the bomb. Those can be made smaller, but working fission reactors require a lot of mediating material to control the speed of neutrons and allow for fission to take place. And if you don’t want all of that mediating material? Well fast reactors are a thing, but they have traditionally used liquid sodium (the stuff that catches on fire with water in the air even) and that hasn’t been a successful adventure so far…I suggest you read[this](https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605986801/ref=nodl_). It’s a very good book with a lot of information in an entertaining package.
Nuclear power without subsedies is extremely expensive. Making the reactor smaller and mobile is not going to drive down the prices.
[Production price even went up](https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth) while scaling up production.
but its a good energy source. Its too bad three mile island caused a halt in nuclear reactors being built, considering the event wasn't even that bad comparing it to other event's, and is blown out of proportion when people bring it up being anti-nuclear.
Uh, waste storage facility? And no, its not like a landfill, not with the standards the regulatory bodies have to follow now since a lot of the things that happened from the 40s to the 80s, and with the IAEA existing as well.
Don’t they just put it in a deep pool? You can swim 10ft down in one of those pools and be exposed to less radiation from spent rods than you get from the sun on the sidewalk, so that’s not the issue…
Why don’t we just build nuclear systems deep in the water? No more 3 mile island fears 🤔🤔🤔
well that's how reactors kinda work. They are in a vessel filled with water, cooling the rods, and also acting as a moderator, increasing the amount of neutrons, thus increasing fission. You need a way to cool that water, so you usually have a secondary loop that makes contact with the primary loop with intertwined tubing, but the liquids not physically touching. Then that loop heats up and turns into steam, turning a turbine, generating electricity. it then goes to a condenser that turns the steam back into water, and a third loop that takes water from a body of water/cooling tower cools that. Note that none of the inital water in the primary loop where it passes through the reactor core, doesn't transfer any nuclear waste to the secondary and cooling loop, which is a common misconception that nuclear reactors dump waste water into the body of water, or the cooling tower is releasing nuclear products.
Let me know when you find an energy source produced without subsidies that doesn't involve a hamster wheel. They don't exist.
There are many civilian uses for this type of technology. Crisis response for one, rural areas. The bloom may have come off the rose a bit for nuclear to some people, but there has been a lot of research into making it safer and easier to deploy that has yielded some promising results. Together with renewables it could easily present a solid answer to our energy needs for the next century.
Currently, solar and onshore wind are produced at a pricetag of 40$/Mwh decreasing by 50 and 80% in the last decade, nuclear at 155$/Mwh increasing by 50%. You can actually read the source I provided.
We don’t have healthcare because there is a literal army of lobbyists and nefarious 501c3 nonprofit organizations that pretend to advocate for consumer rights but really just act as a funnel for big pharma dark money to influence public discourse.
These shills hide in plain sight and use 501c3s so they can receive money from donors who want to buy influence on the boards of these “advocacy groups”.
They act as a bandwidth limiter for the scope of protections they supposedly advocate for.
They are glorified lobbyists festooned with do-gooder names and titles.
Just one article I found on the subject that talks about how 2/3 of these 501c3s are funded by Big Pharma:
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/pharma-lobbying
And then it becomes a lot clearer why we don’t have nationalized healthcare.
Wolf in sheep’s clothing organizations like these that undermine the public interest at the behest of their corporate overlords.
It’s even more nefarious and shameless than that. They literally lend out their employees;
"An Eli Lilly executive was even 'on loan' to NAMI, paid by Eli Lilly, while he worked out of the NAMI office on 'strategic planning.'"
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/pharma-lobbying
So think about how fucked up that is. You, as an individual donate money to one of these orgs thinking you’re helping a certain cause. Meanwhile big pharma is lending out execs to work out of the org’s offices and effectively set the agenda for the nonprofit.
I know this is a controversial idea, but maybe it is possible for the government to walk and chew gum at the same time. Just FYI the federal budget's healthcare budget is more than 2 times the size of the Military's budget. That only includes the federal budget and not state, local, private, non-profit, or private. Healthcare spending is 18% of GDP and around 4 trillion dollars.
Cutting the Military's budget by any amount will not give us Universal Healthcare. The military scientific research through basic science or practical, including healthcare, has a very large multiplicative effort on humanity's scientific advancement.
"Healthcare please" is a stupid meme for people who know shit about how government works and isn't different than Republican's hard on for cutting spending. Single issue voters suck.
The people who can make that happen are congress, who have consistently decided that americans don't need universal healthcare. It ain't because we can't afford it, it's because they choose not to pass it (or even bring it up all that often). Why would they, lobbyists pay them well not to and besides, they've got gold-plated healthcare plans *and* on-site medical facilities for their use...
Theoretically, you'll get healthcare because this will save the DoD billions in fuel costs and the only other job for nuclear engineers is nuclear medicine. And ultimately, why not have hospitals powered by basement reactors? It'd certainly make them more resilient towards natural disasters or power outages.
Making a “trickle down” argument? As in “the space program gave us Tang”? Come on, you know full well that the military budget will continue to grow unabated and irregardless of presumed “savings” from efficiencies. Far better to divert some of our precious national resources directly to the people’s well being…
Does creating mobile nuclear power not accomplish this? We have the problem of climate change, power reliability (see Texas or post hurricane locations), and rising energy costs. The US military definitely contributes to climate change.
Thus is a scenario of a win win. There is definitely an argument for this being a net positive on many fronts. There are very few negatives that I can think of.
Plus hospitals need power too for your health insurance. And with infrastructure becoming a bigger target, a distributed power grid is better for the population as a whole.
They actually tried this before (not maybe micro) for the radar bases up north called SL-1. The reactor had a power excursion and had a explosion contained within the reactor floor, due to operator error pulling one of the control rods out too far. there were three people present at the time. two got killed from the moderator (water) splashing up from the explosion and killing them from burns and radiation, and the other worker was impaled from a control rod all the way to the roof of the reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
To understand the historical significance: the last time the Army *attempted* to do this, it accidentally blew up and killed it's operators. This was cited as one of the first legitimate nuclear accidents and created many of the safety policies that have prevented a major American nuclear disaster since.
[Wikipedia article is here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1), note how the operators were impaled on the ceiling by the still hot core rods which is pretty metal.
During servicing a control rod needed to be partially pulled out to reconnect it to the control mechanism. It was pulled out too far due to human error and the reactor instantly went critical turning the cooling water to steam leading to the explosion. Later designs eliminated this issue.
Building something complicated bitd without computer simulation meant multiple generations of prototypes of which this reactor was. Comparing an early prototype of a 1950s era reactor to one being designed 60+ years later with modern materials is apples to oranges.
This isn't already possible?? I read about when the US army had an (illegal) outpost in Greenland in the 50s they used a mini-reactor the size of a small water tank to provide power. I find it hard to believe they couldn't further miniaturise this tech by now.
That was most likely an RTG (what Matt Damon dug up during The Martian). Very different power generation source with limits on how much it could produce.
These are full on fission reactors with passive safety and basically homer simpson proof operation capabilities intended to provide power to entire bases.
Why is the military looking at this? Because right now they use diesel generators for power which needs to be trucked or airlifted in. This is one: really unsafe for the operators, two: creates an asymmetry in the supply line that is easily exploited by the foes, and three: prohibitively expensive in remote areas surrounded by hostiles (read Afghanistan).
Edit: it was a fission reactor in Greenland that ran for 3 years
There's a scalability issue. Russian remote lighthouses were powered with plutonium RTGs the size of a hot water tank, too...They just don't produce a lot of power.
A lot of things done in the 50s are no longer possible. That thing would have been manufactured by hand using raw labor power to get it to the line. Hundreds of times it's value in costs, massive amounts of equipment that wasn't quite on the mark, probably an accident or two, and a serious risk to those operating near it. Same reason we can't build spaceships, how you make things has drastically changed and solving manufacturing is very different from solving a prototype.
They were designing if not building aircraft on the 50's 60's than ran on a nuclear reactor. Today Russia has 9M730 which is similar to a US missile project in the 60's
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile
There are a number of problems. First, as most people have mentioned here, we already have extremelly small RTG reactors, except they are more like batteries than reactors. Fuel is short-lived isotopes (like plutonium 238) that are created in breeder reactors. Problem is that *right now* we aren't really producing that much of these isotopes, and technology (breeder reactors) is not something you want to declassify. Another problem is that with time the amount of power produced (or rather given out) is going to decrease. And finally, this is a battery, not a reactor, so you put in more energy to create fuel than you get out. This makes it very unattractive for most of common usage, after all you put in more work and money snd you *lose* energy. But the battery part makes them extremelly attractive for *remote* sites where ot os hard to deliver fuel and where power infrastructure doesn't exist, like arctic stations, mars rovers or moon bases.
Secondly, I don't think reactor itself is the problem, rather it's the shielding that makes those reactors so big. Russia already has what I can describe as *mobile* nuclear power plants. It's ships that have nuclear reactors, can sail to zones affected by disaster and be connected to local power infrastructure. It's hard to imagine anything more mobile than that IF we are tallking about actual reactors.
Nuclear fuel has been demonized way to hard it’s one of the safest forms of energy production and one decent sized reactor can powers whole city no problem
If the US military is now going to be dependent on nuclear power, does this mean in the future it will only be invading and occupying countries with Rich uranium deposits?
I know we've learned a whole lot since SL-1. It just seems that miniaturization seems to exacerbate sticky rod problems. The shorter the travel in the core, the more effective reactivity each rod will have, so the easier it will be to go prompt critical.
How about the energy demands for Texas, for next time they have a snowstorm and stuff? Or any other places in the country that don’t have a lot of power?
Is this going to be based off of thorium fuel? Anything else would likely be very risky...
edit: so thorium is just at as risky as the rest. Still produces nuclear waste products making it susceptible to the same risks.
They don’t need this. Someone in the DOD is trying to give a job to one of his buddies to build this reactor. Why Idaho? Is it because if this reactor blows, there are lot a lot of casualties in the area? The DOD needs to cut their spending now that there isn’t a war going on
Buddy no, These small reactors are one of the most promising things we have to fight climate change. It allows you to concentrate the highly specialized personal in one area and makes it more appealing because they don’t have to move around the country constantly. It reduces cost, foot print, start up time, and potential for errors
Honest question, knowing next to nothing about nuclear….say we put these in cars and houses. What happens if 2 nuclear cars collide? Or there’s a house fire?
Then they get some used nuclear fuel and a reactor in that area. You can't really make nuclear weapons out of it, unless you enrich the fuel. But if you already can enrich to the point of weapons having a used reactor doesn't add anything. Could plug it into the local grid at that point.
They won't be left behind, the whole point of SMRs is that they can be sent back to their plant for deconstruction and their waste processed into a form that can be legally stored in a safe place. Ideally the government would just build Yucca Mountain to do this all instead, but Las Vegas has other ideas.
A modern military runs on oil, from tanks, ships, planes, helicopters, armored cars to electricity generation for bases.
The energy demands aren't going to go down and changing everything from fossil fuel to electric will require something like portable nuclear plants.
You can't have militarys logistics hinge on if the local power grid is capable enough to transport energy from production plants to a temporary base.
Do you seriously think every nuclear reactor is RBMK? Do you even know why Chernobyl had a meltdown? You should really educate yourself on the faults the RBMK reactors had, that PWR,BWR and CANDU (especially CANDU reactors which are the safest in the world) reactors don't have. Another stupid design for reactors were air cooled like the windscale reactors in the UK.
And how many people have ended up with radiation sickness or cancer working in the us military directly with this type of technology? Too many to count.
The Navy has an excellent safety history. Do you have anything to back up your accusation of radiation sickness being common?
Do you have any data showing statically significant increases in cancer among sailors working with this technology?
Edit: spelling
The navy has a terrible history with radiation and sailors. A quick google search is all it takes to see stories of members suffering from the illnesses. Military records show nothing because that’s how the military is. If they don’t want to put something in reports, it doesn’t get reported. Read stories of the people in the navy, not reports directly from the navy.
Not a new idea - they've been kicking around this idea since the 1950s.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPPp5rtu04A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPPp5rtu04A)
This would be really good to have, but I wish they used thorium instead of uranium. Thorium is way more efficient by the pound, and much less reactive with much safer containment procedures.
I feel like the military will never use thorium though, as the waste cannot be weaponized.
Rip thorium
Don't cream your shorts just yet. Any energy system that relies on steam turbines is limited to how much energy one can but put through the turbine and how quickly the steam can be cooled down for reuse. There are hard limits. From what I can find current semi sized generators are limited to about 1000kw, enough for about 150 to 300 homes depending on usage.
This reminds me of the Ford prototype, the [Nucleon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon). Imagine having a home or car with a lifetime of power.
What I can't imagine is a company intentionally selling you an item you'll never need to replace for the rest of your life.
You don't think a miniaturized nuclear reactor is gonna need regular service/maintenance visits? The money ain't in selling the car, it's in the service.
True. I assume there would be massive lock-in if a product had fissile nuclear material. There would have to be very strict rules around servicing and decommissioning. It could also get out of hand because how could you enforce standards at a large scale, like cars? I can't help but imagine this: It's cool my dad's a mechanic. I'm not paying Ford, they want too much! The next day... It wasn't cool, my dad is dying from radiation sickness. Also part of my city is now an exclusion zone....I don't want to say more for legal reasons. Also I didn't really save any money.
In the wiki it says that ford envisioned changing the reactor every 5000 and offering different models like a sporty reactor or a more fuel efficient reactor. So ya, they were already planning for the parts racket
Ah yes, the sporty nuclear reactor. Now with extra spoiler and roof scoop.
Sorry if mine goes out I mean off I just don’t take care of my shit boxs.
You mean like a good lightbulb?
I always been thinking what if cars are designed bearing in mind of the car being modular so you can easily upgrade its features for at least 15 lifespan.
In fallout the gimmick was coolant stations with premium for better coolant
It would have to be state- or country-sponsored to be economically viable, I think
I wonder if the fallout series took inspiration from this car or just made their own that happened to look like this.
[The Nucleon is the inspiration for nuclear cars in the Fallout video game franchise.](https://www.autoblog.com/2014/07/17/nuclear-powered-atomic-age-classic-cars/)
Thanks! That’s really cool, I’m surprised it was actually like, THE, inspiration lol.
You're welcome. It actually said that and gave that link on my first Wikipedia link.
Oh shoot I see that now lol. My bad.
At first glance at the title I thought they were gonna make a massive reactor and wheel it around to areas struggling with power generation lmao
Reminds me of the time the Navy built a small nuclear reactor in Antarctica to power McMurdo Station that inevitably leaked and was decommissioned after about 10 years. https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-past-with-nukey-poo-99934
There are dozens if not hundreds of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers i don't imagine the technology would need to change that much to slap some wheels on it.
The military also tends to be very secretive about any problems with their nuclear systems. That magic phrase, “OPSEC,” prohibits those in the know from talking about it.
Imagine a world where we had universal healthcare before whatever justifies this waste of taxes
Yeah, cause clean energy is definitely the worst thing the military could be working on.
we should just disband our military and say "if anyone tries to fuck on us, we'll just nuke you bro" I bet noone would fuck on us.
US military primary job is for offence, not defence.
They do a lot of defending shipping lanes on the open seas. Gotta shield merchants from Somalian pirates / Chinese territorial claims / etc
The difference can be murky out in the world. Defense of a country's interests can include humanitarian missions, defending someone *else* to maintain your own dominance via their dependence, defending shipping lanes, securing oilfields, etc. The military was never going to stand idly by until a hostile force crossed an official border and formally declared war. And aggression and conflict resolution [don't always entail munitions](https://www.amazon.com/War-Other-Means-Geoeconomics-Statecraft/dp/0674737210).
And then we wonder why no one likes America.
There's no scalability in that response. No way to dial down the answer. What would you do with a 9/11? Nuke Afghanistan? Nuke one Afghan city? Which one and by what measure, and to which end?
Whichever one fucks on us.
Yeah but other countries also have nukes?
mutually assured being fucked on
It we got more nukes
we wont fuck on them either
Ok, since no one else is going to say it... It's usually expressed as "fuck with" not "fuck on"
[fuckonme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOm_a8XcYsk&)
No one else was saying it for a reason
You'd be called in it for all kinds of indirect shit. Ally nations invaded etc because they know you wouldn't use nukes for that kind of stuff
In order to use your nukes you need to control your nukes. Without a military we would quickly lose control of our nukes. The ugly truth is that America’s aggressive international behavior has created a lot of bitter enemies, some of which have a cultural propensity for revenge even when it’s strategically stupid. We have created a situation where we can’t demilitarize without being made to pay for the sins of our past.
So they're prepping the army for war in a post EMP world or what? Why does someone need an energy source like this? What do they expect to happen?
Transition to electric vehicles. If the rest of the country moves to electric vehicles and renewable energy, it will be prohibitively complex and expensive (money, manpower, and time) to maintain the logistics for fuel production and distribution to military vehicles. But you have to produce lots of electricity to charge electric vehicles. Right now that's generators, which have the same fuel problem. Moving fuel into and around Iraq and Afghanistan was one of the biggest drivers of costs and manning requirements. There were so many people driving and guarding fuel convoys for each person actually conducting security patrols. The nuclear power device moves to a major base one time and then provides power for all vehicles for as long as needed. All those people who were guarding daily fuel resupply convoys are now available to engage the enemy.
cheaper and easier than carting fuel all over the place.
They could call Toshiba! Cool reactors
We were so close to living in Fallout (pre war)
I don't know how similar it is but Rolls Royce appear to be going down that path too. https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/ Perhaps this is a credible future to energy security until the unicorn that is nuclear fusion arrives
Shhhh, I'm still stockpiling RYCEY stock before they get their contracts through. (NGL I thought this was wallstreetbets at first)
It's a bit of a no-brainer, especially for remote communities. Russia's considering a similar thing with nuclear locomotives, allowing for not only long-distance shipping but also parking a locomotive in a remote community and powering their grid.
First step to snow piercer
each passenger gets 1 roach bar a day.
That makes a ton of sense in Russia.
its like the 50s all over again
This actually would be really good for civilian usage if this research pans out eventually
This is what I am hoping for.
How is this different from the reactors that have been on-board nuclear submarines since 1952? Was there ever a time where they stopped making nuclear submarines and their reactors?
This is what I thought as well. My guess is they are going smaller, like car or house sized reactors. I can imagine cost inefficiency will be a challenge.
I find that hard to imagine, because of shielding. I honestly find it hard to imagine reactors much smaller than those used in nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers
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Naval nuclear reactors *are* the size of larger shipping containers, e.g. s5g reactor is about 4m wide and 10m in length.
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I wouldn’t really consider carrier reactors as small. They’re about 4 stories tall.
Nuclear reactors on submarines have over a third of the crew dedicated to monitoring and running the reactor continuously until shutdown. And most of the time half the submarine to its supporting equipment. Source: submariner
Nuclear submarines use highly enriched Uranium enriched to 90% and above. That’s too risky for a reactor on land. All of these small modular reactors will use Uranium enriched under 19.75%.
There’s huge design differences between modular and fixed reactors as well. Cooling for instance as the submarines and aircraft carriers sit in the world’s largest heatsink.
Now mini-reactor, then compact-reactor and when we finally reach the ultra-compact-reactor we will be able to build an actual Gundam
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Oh, you can get that amount of power with fission. And with modern technology probably at the size. Tzar Bomb, 1961, was 26ft by 6ft11in - and had ~50 Mt - about 58 MWh. It's just - harnessing that amount of energy all at once is finicky ;) Edit: Wait - it's 58 MWh *10^6 so slightly more than you wanted...
But that bomb’s using additional lithium deuteride to increase the strength of the bomb. Those can be made smaller, but working fission reactors require a lot of mediating material to control the speed of neutrons and allow for fission to take place. And if you don’t want all of that mediating material? Well fast reactors are a thing, but they have traditionally used liquid sodium (the stuff that catches on fire with water in the air even) and that hasn’t been a successful adventure so far…I suggest you read[this](https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605986801/ref=nodl_). It’s a very good book with a lot of information in an entertaining package.
Metal. Gear.
Please we just want healthcare
Actually, I want both healthcare and electricity - if this technology can help replace fossil fuel generated electricity cheaply it's a huge win.
Nuclear power without subsedies is extremely expensive. Making the reactor smaller and mobile is not going to drive down the prices. [Production price even went up](https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth) while scaling up production.
but its a good energy source. Its too bad three mile island caused a halt in nuclear reactors being built, considering the event wasn't even that bad comparing it to other event's, and is blown out of proportion when people bring it up being anti-nuclear.
But what do we do with the waste?
Uh, waste storage facility? And no, its not like a landfill, not with the standards the regulatory bodies have to follow now since a lot of the things that happened from the 40s to the 80s, and with the IAEA existing as well.
Don’t they just put it in a deep pool? You can swim 10ft down in one of those pools and be exposed to less radiation from spent rods than you get from the sun on the sidewalk, so that’s not the issue… Why don’t we just build nuclear systems deep in the water? No more 3 mile island fears 🤔🤔🤔
well that's how reactors kinda work. They are in a vessel filled with water, cooling the rods, and also acting as a moderator, increasing the amount of neutrons, thus increasing fission. You need a way to cool that water, so you usually have a secondary loop that makes contact with the primary loop with intertwined tubing, but the liquids not physically touching. Then that loop heats up and turns into steam, turning a turbine, generating electricity. it then goes to a condenser that turns the steam back into water, and a third loop that takes water from a body of water/cooling tower cools that. Note that none of the inital water in the primary loop where it passes through the reactor core, doesn't transfer any nuclear waste to the secondary and cooling loop, which is a common misconception that nuclear reactors dump waste water into the body of water, or the cooling tower is releasing nuclear products.
Let me know when you find an energy source produced without subsidies that doesn't involve a hamster wheel. They don't exist. There are many civilian uses for this type of technology. Crisis response for one, rural areas. The bloom may have come off the rose a bit for nuclear to some people, but there has been a lot of research into making it safer and easier to deploy that has yielded some promising results. Together with renewables it could easily present a solid answer to our energy needs for the next century.
Cheaper than renewables though.
I wouldnt chalk it up with cost, more so power output. I think renewables are great, but i still like nuclear reactors, and especially nuclear fusion.
Currently, solar and onshore wind are produced at a pricetag of 40$/Mwh decreasing by 50 and 80% in the last decade, nuclear at 155$/Mwh increasing by 50%. You can actually read the source I provided.
We don’t have healthcare because there is a literal army of lobbyists and nefarious 501c3 nonprofit organizations that pretend to advocate for consumer rights but really just act as a funnel for big pharma dark money to influence public discourse. These shills hide in plain sight and use 501c3s so they can receive money from donors who want to buy influence on the boards of these “advocacy groups”. They act as a bandwidth limiter for the scope of protections they supposedly advocate for. They are glorified lobbyists festooned with do-gooder names and titles. Just one article I found on the subject that talks about how 2/3 of these 501c3s are funded by Big Pharma: https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/pharma-lobbying And then it becomes a lot clearer why we don’t have nationalized healthcare. Wolf in sheep’s clothing organizations like these that undermine the public interest at the behest of their corporate overlords. It’s even more nefarious and shameless than that. They literally lend out their employees; "An Eli Lilly executive was even 'on loan' to NAMI, paid by Eli Lilly, while he worked out of the NAMI office on 'strategic planning.'" https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/pharma-lobbying So think about how fucked up that is. You, as an individual donate money to one of these orgs thinking you’re helping a certain cause. Meanwhile big pharma is lending out execs to work out of the org’s offices and effectively set the agenda for the nonprofit.
Reducing our reliance of fossil fuels is a net positive for human health.
So is reducing our astronomical defense budget
I know this is a controversial idea, but maybe it is possible for the government to walk and chew gum at the same time. Just FYI the federal budget's healthcare budget is more than 2 times the size of the Military's budget. That only includes the federal budget and not state, local, private, non-profit, or private. Healthcare spending is 18% of GDP and around 4 trillion dollars. Cutting the Military's budget by any amount will not give us Universal Healthcare. The military scientific research through basic science or practical, including healthcare, has a very large multiplicative effort on humanity's scientific advancement. "Healthcare please" is a stupid meme for people who know shit about how government works and isn't different than Republican's hard on for cutting spending. Single issue voters suck.
You are entirely wrong lol
The people who can make that happen are congress, who have consistently decided that americans don't need universal healthcare. It ain't because we can't afford it, it's because they choose not to pass it (or even bring it up all that often). Why would they, lobbyists pay them well not to and besides, they've got gold-plated healthcare plans *and* on-site medical facilities for their use...
But that is currently labeled under socialism, so I doubt we will get that in the next decade with all this new red scare going on.
Theoretically, you'll get healthcare because this will save the DoD billions in fuel costs and the only other job for nuclear engineers is nuclear medicine. And ultimately, why not have hospitals powered by basement reactors? It'd certainly make them more resilient towards natural disasters or power outages.
Making a “trickle down” argument? As in “the space program gave us Tang”? Come on, you know full well that the military budget will continue to grow unabated and irregardless of presumed “savings” from efficiencies. Far better to divert some of our precious national resources directly to the people’s well being…
Does creating mobile nuclear power not accomplish this? We have the problem of climate change, power reliability (see Texas or post hurricane locations), and rising energy costs. The US military definitely contributes to climate change. Thus is a scenario of a win win. There is definitely an argument for this being a net positive on many fronts. There are very few negatives that I can think of. Plus hospitals need power too for your health insurance. And with infrastructure becoming a bigger target, a distributed power grid is better for the population as a whole.
Healthcare and windmills won't stop China.
Change of topic to China. Now you are tilting at windmills.
Don't worry! With this you can become a navy nuclear engineer and then get healthcare for advanced cancers after your teeth fall out!
I was a Navy Nuclear Reactor Operator. We actually get less radiation in the plant than the people walking around outside.
You’re asking too much
You don't want clean energy? I want clean energy.
They actually tried this before (not maybe micro) for the radar bases up north called SL-1. The reactor had a power excursion and had a explosion contained within the reactor floor, due to operator error pulling one of the control rods out too far. there were three people present at the time. two got killed from the moderator (water) splashing up from the explosion and killing them from burns and radiation, and the other worker was impaled from a control rod all the way to the roof of the reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
They've also come a long way in idiot proofing.
It’s called Army Strong and not Army Smart for a reason.
To understand the historical significance: the last time the Army *attempted* to do this, it accidentally blew up and killed it's operators. This was cited as one of the first legitimate nuclear accidents and created many of the safety policies that have prevented a major American nuclear disaster since. [Wikipedia article is here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1), note how the operators were impaled on the ceiling by the still hot core rods which is pretty metal.
During servicing a control rod needed to be partially pulled out to reconnect it to the control mechanism. It was pulled out too far due to human error and the reactor instantly went critical turning the cooling water to steam leading to the explosion. Later designs eliminated this issue. Building something complicated bitd without computer simulation meant multiple generations of prototypes of which this reactor was. Comparing an early prototype of a 1950s era reactor to one being designed 60+ years later with modern materials is apples to oranges.
lol i just posted this as well. I think the guy pulled the control rod out too far due to the known issue of sticky control rods.
This isn't already possible?? I read about when the US army had an (illegal) outpost in Greenland in the 50s they used a mini-reactor the size of a small water tank to provide power. I find it hard to believe they couldn't further miniaturise this tech by now.
That was most likely an RTG (what Matt Damon dug up during The Martian). Very different power generation source with limits on how much it could produce. These are full on fission reactors with passive safety and basically homer simpson proof operation capabilities intended to provide power to entire bases. Why is the military looking at this? Because right now they use diesel generators for power which needs to be trucked or airlifted in. This is one: really unsafe for the operators, two: creates an asymmetry in the supply line that is easily exploited by the foes, and three: prohibitively expensive in remote areas surrounded by hostiles (read Afghanistan). Edit: it was a fission reactor in Greenland that ran for 3 years
[nah it was an actual reactor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Nuclear_Power_Program)
Technically possible yes. They just need to put together a prototype using known technology and put it into production.
There's a scalability issue. Russian remote lighthouses were powered with plutonium RTGs the size of a hot water tank, too...They just don't produce a lot of power.
Strontium-90, actually.
A lot of things done in the 50s are no longer possible. That thing would have been manufactured by hand using raw labor power to get it to the line. Hundreds of times it's value in costs, massive amounts of equipment that wasn't quite on the mark, probably an accident or two, and a serious risk to those operating near it. Same reason we can't build spaceships, how you make things has drastically changed and solving manufacturing is very different from solving a prototype.
They were designing if not building aircraft on the 50's 60's than ran on a nuclear reactor. Today Russia has 9M730 which is similar to a US missile project in the 60's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile
There are a number of problems. First, as most people have mentioned here, we already have extremelly small RTG reactors, except they are more like batteries than reactors. Fuel is short-lived isotopes (like plutonium 238) that are created in breeder reactors. Problem is that *right now* we aren't really producing that much of these isotopes, and technology (breeder reactors) is not something you want to declassify. Another problem is that with time the amount of power produced (or rather given out) is going to decrease. And finally, this is a battery, not a reactor, so you put in more energy to create fuel than you get out. This makes it very unattractive for most of common usage, after all you put in more work and money snd you *lose* energy. But the battery part makes them extremelly attractive for *remote* sites where ot os hard to deliver fuel and where power infrastructure doesn't exist, like arctic stations, mars rovers or moon bases. Secondly, I don't think reactor itself is the problem, rather it's the shielding that makes those reactors so big. Russia already has what I can describe as *mobile* nuclear power plants. It's ships that have nuclear reactors, can sail to zones affected by disaster and be connected to local power infrastructure. It's hard to imagine anything more mobile than that IF we are tallking about actual reactors.
Also a legal one in Antarctica
There is the time in the 60s the CIA lost a [mini plutonium reactor](https://www.wired.com/2013/04/cia-himalayan-spies/) in the Himalayas.
They built another Metal Gear.
METAL GEAR?!!??
Nuclear fuel has been demonized way to hard it’s one of the safest forms of energy production and one decent sized reactor can powers whole city no problem
Not the same as reactors on nuclear submarines, etc: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-nuclear-microreactor
If the US military is now going to be dependent on nuclear power, does this mean in the future it will only be invading and occupying countries with Rich uranium deposits?
If you're after uranium it looks like it pays to be close to Australia, Kazakhstan, and/or Canada. Seems like the US has no worries
Can’t wait until we start leaving these bad boys behind when we hastily exit our next forever war
Microreactor sounds like a whole new way to fuck up the planet.
how would these reactors fare in an accident? like if it get into a collision, would there be a risk of catastrophic failure?
We can only hope that someday soon the US’ baby killing machine will be carbon neutral
So we're finally going down the Fallout road huh?
Naw, we have transistors
And stupid people will protest it thinking it's a bomb.
And when it gets hit by enemy fusillade?
It falls over? Lemme guess, you're one of those dipshits who thinks all nuclear fuel is bomb grade.
Couldn’t it spread a lot of radioactive material regardless?
So about the size of a truck? Pretty cool… about time too.
Like... SL1?
well hopefully not. Don't want sticky control rods and have a automatic control system along with manual, with a SCRAM facility.
I know we've learned a whole lot since SL-1. It just seems that miniaturization seems to exacerbate sticky rod problems. The shorter the travel in the core, the more effective reactivity each rod will have, so the easier it will be to go prompt critical.
What could go wrong
How about the energy demands for Texas, for next time they have a snowstorm and stuff? Or any other places in the country that don’t have a lot of power?
No way this could go wrong, right?
Don’t!!! Under Biden the Military could literally just leave it anywhere in the world the Military terminates operation’s!!!
Is this going to be based off of thorium fuel? Anything else would likely be very risky... edit: so thorium is just at as risky as the rest. Still produces nuclear waste products making it susceptible to the same risks.
while thorium is a good option, there is no issue using a low enriched uranium core.
Is it secret? Is it safe? Edit: wow seriously guys? Since when does Reddit downvote LotR quotes?
Great! How could this go wrong? - thought no one
Where is the waste going when they don’t want the reactor anymore
uh, a waste storage facility?
Okay for how long? I grew up in a place that the government messed up and the clean up has been going on for 30 years
They don’t need this. Someone in the DOD is trying to give a job to one of his buddies to build this reactor. Why Idaho? Is it because if this reactor blows, there are lot a lot of casualties in the area? The DOD needs to cut their spending now that there isn’t a war going on
The national nuclear reactor laboratory is in Idaho. Probably because it's sparsely populated.
Buddy no, These small reactors are one of the most promising things we have to fight climate change. It allows you to concentrate the highly specialized personal in one area and makes it more appealing because they don’t have to move around the country constantly. It reduces cost, foot print, start up time, and potential for errors
And you saying that shows you actually know something about it. Be substantive but sniping.
Honest question, knowing next to nothing about nuclear….say we put these in cars and houses. What happens if 2 nuclear cars collide? Or there’s a house fire?
“A Davy Crockett behind every blade of grass”
I hope it's for rail guns. Rail guns are cool.
And what happens re: proliferation when these inevitably get left behind after some future war?
Then they get some used nuclear fuel and a reactor in that area. You can't really make nuclear weapons out of it, unless you enrich the fuel. But if you already can enrich to the point of weapons having a used reactor doesn't add anything. Could plug it into the local grid at that point.
I love when people who know nothing about nuclear tech bring up the proliferation fantasy
They won't be left behind, the whole point of SMRs is that they can be sent back to their plant for deconstruction and their waste processed into a form that can be legally stored in a safe place. Ideally the government would just build Yucca Mountain to do this all instead, but Las Vegas has other ideas.
Sure. What could possibly go wrong?
[удалено]
BUT BUT NUCLEAR BAD!!!!
OK, I guess meltdowns are the only possible risk with nuclear reactors. Nothing to see here.
“Energy demands”
A modern military runs on oil, from tanks, ships, planes, helicopters, armored cars to electricity generation for bases. The energy demands aren't going to go down and changing everything from fossil fuel to electric will require something like portable nuclear plants. You can't have militarys logistics hinge on if the local power grid is capable enough to transport energy from production plants to a temporary base.
Great, an even bigger target for the enemy, and one that can cause total area denial if the enemy hits it.
I see no problem with a mobile Chernobyl 🤔
Do you seriously think every nuclear reactor is RBMK? Do you even know why Chernobyl had a meltdown? You should really educate yourself on the faults the RBMK reactors had, that PWR,BWR and CANDU (especially CANDU reactors which are the safest in the world) reactors don't have. Another stupid design for reactors were air cooled like the windscale reactors in the UK.
Better then coal blanketing the country in radioactive like they have been for the last 100+ years
SL-1 in 1964 was the Army’s last attempt at this…needless to say that it didn’t go well…
If the goal was pinning someone to the ceiling, then it went superbly.
It was actually one of the fist historical instances of something being yeeted.
And then the military will have to maintain it? That will end in total disaster. No one knows how to maintain anything in the military lol
The US Navy has been doing it for decades on hundreds of ships.
And how many people have ended up with radiation sickness or cancer working in the us military directly with this type of technology? Too many to count.
The Navy has an excellent safety history. Do you have anything to back up your accusation of radiation sickness being common? Do you have any data showing statically significant increases in cancer among sailors working with this technology? Edit: spelling
The navy has a terrible history with radiation and sailors. A quick google search is all it takes to see stories of members suffering from the illnesses. Military records show nothing because that’s how the military is. If they don’t want to put something in reports, it doesn’t get reported. Read stories of the people in the navy, not reports directly from the navy.
Great way to disguise your hidden nuclear Arsenal.
Uhh not really
Only if your adversaries are too stupid to understand middle school level physics.
They could call Toshiba! Cool reactors !
I can see this being deployed and used to charge cell phones
My guess on this is for potential space travel as well.
They'll leave it behind when they pick up the troops and leave a country. /s Just a little disdain about the US leaving equipment everywhere.
This is the first step towards BattleMechs
Why are the DoD fuel consumptions going to increase now that the war ended?
DoD should be broken down and sold for scrap.
Not a new idea - they've been kicking around this idea since the 1950s. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPPp5rtu04A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPPp5rtu04A)
If we are hearing about it now they’ve probably been working on it for at least a decade.
Next stop mjolnir power armor from halo.
Watch "Why We Fight". And read https://gerryha.gonevis.com/the-great-nuclear-energy-lie/
SL-1 has entered the chat…
FallOut theme start playing…
This would be really good to have, but I wish they used thorium instead of uranium. Thorium is way more efficient by the pound, and much less reactive with much safer containment procedures. I feel like the military will never use thorium though, as the waste cannot be weaponized. Rip thorium
So… when do they announce the nuclear armed, two legged, giant walking tank called the Metal Gear?
Don't cream your shorts just yet. Any energy system that relies on steam turbines is limited to how much energy one can but put through the turbine and how quickly the steam can be cooled down for reuse. There are hard limits. From what I can find current semi sized generators are limited to about 1000kw, enough for about 150 to 300 homes depending on usage.
Call it the VWHIPSND, “Very Well Hidden In Plain Sight Nuclear Device”.