Toshiba's "Micro Nuclear Reactor" – it's not fusion, but it's here now

[ailabs]

Read this 12/17 at:

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

“Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. 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.

Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.”

Looks like we need to accelerate focus fusion’s momentum to establish a viable alternative.

[prosario_2000]

Of course, like with every news that is “too good to be true”, I have to wait until I see enthusiastic people going for it, see the arguments of people who are against it, and see if some objective study can tell us more precisely what it does. Of course, the questions I have are: will it truly be cost effective? and will it produce radioactive waste in some way?

[ailabs]

The history of technology is full of “good enough” solutions becoming dominant. Toshiba’s (or anyone else’s) reactor doesn’t have to be perfect, i.e. it can produce some radioactive waste. Other countries (France, Japan, etc. come to mind) safely reprocess and/or dispose of radioactive waste. Nuclear power in the US, even with the overzealous regulatory burden, is cheaper than most other energy sources, so I wouldn’t dismiss the claim of 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Even if it were 10 cents, it will be available next year.

I’m all for a perfect solution like focus fusion. I just want to make sure it has a chance. It won’t if it takes 10 years to develop and commercialize. The days are over when we can take our sweet time….

[prosario_2000]

I do agree that the history of technology is full of “good enough” solutions becoming dominant. And, of course, I’m not asking for any technology to be perfect. Focus Fusion is not a perfect technology, but it is very close to the ideal technology we need for the future. Bad news is that when a corporation tells me that it has the best solution, I have to be skeptical and see if it’s true. Corporations are not good when it comes to telling the truth, especially when they want to market their own technologies. That does not mean a corporation a priori tells a lie, but after so much stories of their lies the healthy approach would be to be skeptical, and to wait for people for and against the technology to propose their points of view so I can decide for sure.

About disposing radioactive waste, of course, is one of those elements I want to be sure is going to be what Toshiba says is going to be. Radioactive waste is, despite everything, radioactive waste, and it is harmful in many ways. The ideal technology should not produce radioactive waste. That’s why I favor Focus Fusion because it is a fusion technology that leaves no radioactive waste at all. You only produce ions of Helium nuclei, and that’s it. The rest is converted to huge amounts of energy converted into electricity.

My worry is that if such a technology like Toshiba’s will be available in the future, that people will rely on it and rest on it, while not looking for better alternatives. Society, unfortunately, acts on inertia, which is what has happened with oil and other fuels.

[Lerner]

If Toshiba’s machine has no costs except its capital cost, that cost is probably high. Probably around $10-20 per watt of capacity. That is too expensive to allow the whole world to come up to advanced-world standards of living. We are aiming at focus fusion reactors that would be far cheaper, more like 6 cents per watt of capacity.

[ailabs]

Society also builds a tax structure on products and services and that’s especially true for gasoline and other oil-based fuels. So an abrupt switch to truly cheap and inexhaustible energy sources, such as fusion, could result in massive losses of tax revenue, unless a corresponding $N/KW hour tax is made “part of the package.”

As far as being concerned about bringing the whole world up to advanced-world standards of living at the outset, we might want to go by the technology adoption curve. That means early adopters will (have to) be well off for practical reasons. That leaves, for focus fusion, regions like North America, Europe, Japan/S.Korea/China and Australia, if we want to accelerate development and commercialization, as I think we must. In business I always “overplay” competitive threats, to stay ahead come what may. So I’d strive to beat Toshiba’s claim of 5 cents per kilowatt hour and at least triple the funding to gain time too. I realize it is easy for me to “at least triple funding requirements” when we don’t even have the original funding in place. Maybe asking for “too little” to develop such a profoundly significant technology is a handicap, while 30 – 60 – 100 million would actually be taken seriously?

[Zara]

If the concept can be finished and all things done correctly it should be a very clean very effiecient energy source from what I can figure out about the entire concept behind Focus Fusion and Hydrogen and Boson based reactors and many other different methods. I think that this has a future that is promising if collected by the proper scientific community and made into the device it is intended. When there is a working model it will make a huge impact on our world. This is the concept I see in this research and there are other options which can get us through until we are capable of rolling out the cleaner technologies. Like going with ethanol, our food source, in the interim of switching to desalination plants and hydrogen fuels. This is my take on this new product.

[ailabs]

I’m sure it’s not a question of “if” but “when” focus fusion or similar fusion technologies become feasible and commercialized.

There is a psychological component everybody seems to miss and which makes us pay $100/barrel of oil. “Everybody knows” we’ll have abundant and cheap energy in 20-30 years. If we were able to declare NOW that in 3 years we’ll have a working, commercializable fusion plant, it would change the psychology / dynamics of the marketplace. Reagan’s “Star Wars” didn’t have to succeed right away (we have it now, 20 years later) it just had to change perceptions. It did and communism is dead, for all practical purposes.

As soon as we announce a working fusion technology we’ll have cheap energy again, end inflationary pressures, and stop financing global terror.

[Zara]

We had it then.

[ailabs]

That means the government can keep secrets much better than we are led to believe…the noise “proving” it couldn’t be done was overwhelming.

Either way, we have the track record, i.e. the Manhattan and Apollo programs, so if we just declare we’ll have a working fusion energy plant in 4 years and put enough money behind it, everybody would believe it.

[Focus Fusion Society]

Is there any corroboration of this story? I looked at the Toshiba site, got to this page on their nuclear energy products: http://www.toshiba.co.jp/nuclearenergy/english/index.htm

You would think they would mention a miraculous micro reactor, especially if they are rolling it out in Japan this year. They don’t.

For the future, this is what Toshiba envisions (from this link):

Future Reactors and Plants
As an innovator in reactor design and development, Toshiba promotes the evolution to new reactors like the ABWR-II. Based on today’s most advanced BWR (ABWR), this next generation reactor will offer higher economic competitiveness and be safer and more reliable.

-> Next Generation BWR Plant (ABWR-II)
-> Advanced Reactor (SCPR, LSBWR)
-> Fusion Reactor
-> Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR)

The ABWR is an advanced boiling water reactor. Here’s a picture. Looks pretty big.

Perhaps I’m missing out on the micro reactor information which is only written in Japanese in the Nihongo section of the website. Maybe they’re trying to keep us English speakers in the dark. Before we speculate further, someone corroborate the story!

[ailabs]

The only corroboration of some substance I could find is on Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena_Nuclear_Power_Plant

which puts the place of the first US installation in Galena, Alaska around 2012. Toshiba would provide the whole system free, bringing the cost of operation down to around 10 cents/KWh.

Toshiba may have the 4S ready for sale now; the cost and length of getting it licensed in the US could account for the 4-year delay. They can find other, much less restrictive markets in the meantime. However, it doesn’t look like they can produce electricity at 6 cents/KWh. Neither can focus fusion till it goes into production.

I’ve come across another approach, called the “Microfusion Electricity Generator,” at:

http://www.electronpowersystems.com/

I’d like to hear your and other members’ take on it.

[Rezwan]

OK, I followed the wikipedia link for the “Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI – sounds like creepy!) that Toshiba is allegedly partnering with on this.

Looking around I found this link
http://criepi.denken.or.jp/en/e_publication/2004.html which has two pdf files of interest:

43. The Sodium Cooled Small Sealed Fast Reactor (4S) with Non-refueling and
44. Development Scenario of Fusion Energy following the ITER Project.

It doesn’t say the thing is ready for market yet, but it sounds like it’s cooking!
Also, it doesn’t mention Toshiba in the PDF. Nothing like “in partnership with Toshiba”. Only 2 page document, though, so that might be extraneous info.

[ailabs]

Rezwan – thanks for the follow-up. Looks like this might be some good old-fashioned “FUD marketing” from Toshiba and Co. until they can actually deliver.

[Rezwan]

Thanks for FUD! I learned something new. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. Googled it. This link explained it a bit.

As for EPS, the more people working on alternatives, the better! Let’s not FUD each other, but let things develop.

[Author]

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