Pocket nuke for Alaska

Hundreds of miles from the nearest power plant, the roughly 700 residents of Galena, Alaska, depend on costly generator-supplied electricity for their homes.

But now, they want to go nuclear.

No, not a traditional hulking nuclear power plant. That would be far too big. Instead, town leaders have signed up for what some call a “pocket nuke” or “nuclear battery” that produces just 10 megawatts – about 1 percent of the energy an average nuclear plant generates.

Japanese manufacturer Toshiba has told the town it will install its new “4S” (Super-safe, small, and simple) reactor free of charge by 2012.

The unit, which would be buried about 100 feet underground, would only have to be refueled every 30 years or so. A turbine station would sit above the reactor, turning heat from the reactor into electricity.


http://features.csmo...rink-the-nukes/



The small town of Galena, Alaska, is tired to pay 28 cents/kwh for its electricity, three times the national average. Today, Galena "is powered by generators burning diesel that is barged in during the Yukon River's ice-free months," according to Reuters. But Toshiba, which designs a small nuclear reactor named 4S (for "Super Safe, Small, & Simple"), is offering a free reactor to the 700-person village, reports the New York Times (no reg. needed). Galena will only pay for operating costs, driving down the price of electricity to less than 10 cents/kwh. The 4S is a sodium-cooled fast spectrum reactor -- a low-pressure, self-cooling reactor.


Toshiba, which designs a new 10-megawatt nuclear reactor, offered to install one of these in the hope that other isolated towns will follow, explains the New York Times.

Toshiba offered Galena a free reactor if the town would pay the operating costs, estimated at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, about the national average for power. In December, the City Council voted unanimously to take it.


http://www.primidi.com/2005/02/06.html