Bylting í kjarnorkunotkun

There’s not much the U.S. military does that’s more dangerous than trucking fuel through a war zone. In 2009, the Army foundthat one soldier died for every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan. So if a better way could be found to generate electricity at remote bases — that’s what most of the fuel is used for — it could greatly reduce the risks to our military.

A solution could be a new micro-nuclear reactor being developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Westinghouse power company. Built around heat-pipe technology, this inherently safe microreactor has no cooling water or pumps that can fail, uses passive regulation systems so that it cannot melt down, and can generate at least 1 megawatt of safe, reliable power for 10 years or more. A megawatt is enough electricity for roughly a military brigade, some 1,500 to 4,000 soldiers.

Most importantly, it’s small. The reactor core itself is about the size of the garbage can that you roll down to your curb each week. The entire microreactor system will fit on the back of a semi-truck or on a small ship. It’s small enough to bring to remote areas and islands, greatly reducing the need to send fuel convoys and troops into harm’s way.

We’re using technologies that have existed for decades, so they are proven safe and reliable. But previously there was no way to integrate those technologies together into a functioning system. Now, we are able use advanced manufacturing technologies and computational tools to build a new generation of safe, small, and simple transportable power systems.

This new microreactor sprang from Los Alamos’ work to develop a small nuclear reactor for NASA that might someday power a colony on Mars or the Moon. Called Kilopower, the Mars reactor is about the size of a roll-aboard suitcase and provides 1 to 10 kilowatts of electric power. A key feature is self-regulation: the Kilopower reactor relies on inherent physics phenomena to naturally regulate its power output to meet power needs. Passive heat pipes drive multiple engines to generate electricity. Testing at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center at the Nevada National Security Site demonstrated a smaller version of the entire system.

Auðvitað er það kaninn sem getur búið til kjarnaofn sem er mjög öruggur og býr til 1 meagawatt í ofni sem er á stærð við öskutunnu.

Hvað gæti þetta ekki gert til að minnka kolefnisfótsporsdelluna sem hér ríður húsum og spara dísilkeyrslu úti á landi?

 

Athugasemdir

[Örn Einar Hansen, 21.9.2018 kl. 16:13]

Hugsaðu þér, Rússar eru komnir með "Ramjet", sem einnig er "micro reactor". Kaninn er kominn með micro reactor ... á sama tíma, erum við hér á þessum skíthaug sem kallast Evrópa að leggja niður kjarnorku og brenna rusl, sem á að vera "náttúruvinsamleg".

Þvílík firra, ég á ekki annað orð.

[Halldór Jónsson, 21.9.2018 kl. 19:32]

Já skíthaugur er Evrópa afturhaldsins Bjarne

[Hrólfur Þ Hraundal, 22.9.2018 kl. 10:04]

Þekking Rússa er trúlega að megin efni komin frá bandaríkja mönnum Þar sem þeir þekktu þetta fyrir áratugum og ég las um sem unglingur.  Þeir Bandaríkjamenn fóru ekkert dult með þetta, en það hentar ekki nema á mjög mikilli ferð.