Better All The Time Thanksgiving Dispatch #1
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I couldn't find the time the last couple of weeks to do a whole Better All the Time roundup, so I'm going to do this one in pieces throughout the Thanksgiving weekend. This is like one of those Thanksgiving marathons they run on the cable channels-- Andy Griffith or whatever -- only with good news stories!
Item 1
Mini
nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.
The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.
Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.
The Good News
Cheap, clean, and virtually limitless energy was the vision that originally sold the world on nuclear power more than half a century ago. While safety concerns have slowed the adoption and use of nuclear fission in the US to a fraction of what it was expected to be by now, other countries have made rapid progress-- notably France Ukraine, Sweden, Slovakia, and Belgium, all of which derive more than 50% of their electricity from nuclear. France leads the world, deriving 77% of its power from nuclear.
Now the US has the opportunity to turn things around by leapfrogging earlier models of nuclear power production in favor of newer models that offer greater efficiency and safety. These miniature plants are one possible approach, making small-scale distribution of nuclear power available for the first time.
Live to see it!
