"If it wasn't for government regulation and subsidies", I remember ranting once, "we'd all have nuclear-powered flying hummers by now! Hell, I'd probably have a nuclear battery in my friggin' MP3 player if it wasn't for the government!" Well, the technological leap of that rant is now one step closer to reality.
From Slashdot.org --
Portable Nuclear Battery in the Development Stages --
The Santa Fe Reporter has up an article about a portable nuclear reactor, about the size of a hot tub. Despite it's small size the company that is planning to develop the product (Hyperion Power Generation), claims it could power up to 25,000 homes.
"Though it would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy, Hyperion doesn't like to think of its product as a reactor. It's self-contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn't require a human operator. 'In fact, we prefer to call it a drive or a battery or a module in that it's so safe,' Hyperion spokeswoman Deborah Blackwell says. 'Like you don't open a double-A battery, you just plug [the reactor] in and it does its chemical thing inside of it. You don't ever open it or mess with it.'"
If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors.
Can't wait to see if the Feds interfere... Of course if they don't ban it, they'll subsidize it...
"The nuclear industry has never given the complete picture." Nuclear Watch New Mexico Executive Director Jay Coghlan says. "Taxpayer subsidies and the environmental and financial costs of mining and enriching uranium and waste disposal are never completely factored in."
Of course nuclear energy is one of the extremes of the public safety issue, with judicial accountability and industrial insurance policies playing an important role... But those channels of control are not being developed in a free market, the government is pulling all the strings. At one time nuclear energy was in conflict with the government's need to control the world's oil resources. Now that China and India are turning to nuclear energy, so will we, to patent and export those technologies to them before France or Japan does.
This will be interesting to watch.