Volition

Toshiba has a design for a nuclear reactor which could power a small community for thirty years. The company has even said it will donate one to the Alaskan town of Galena, population six-hundred, to demonstrate how clean and reliable the reactor is.

The reactor itself is quite different from your typical environmental-disaster-waiting-to-happen like, say, Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. The small reactor is constructed in a factory and shipped out to the site. The core is a one-shot, sealed job, which doesn't contain enough uranium to melt down. Also, the uranium used isn't weapons grade, so the reactor would not be likely to become a target for nasty terrorists or black marketeers.

What isn't clear is how dangerous the core is once it's spent, however. If the thing can be disposed of safely, then this sounds like a really damm good idea. Especially for remote communities like Galena, which would otherwise have to use diesel or something else similarly icky. The other hurdle is the cost. Using mass-manufacturing techniques will get the production cost down if the plants prove to be popular enough, but the cost of getting the design approved for use in the United States (and elsewhere) is astronomical.

Still, the possibility excites me. This is the kind of progress we need to make if we're going to be able to get people on Mars, and we all know that is what I want to see before I grow too much older. Interestingly, the idea seems to be a return to Edison's vision of many smaller power plants, instead of having few, large plants as espoused by Telsa. Given the craptacular move to privatise and nationalise electricity utilities we're seeing in many first-world counties, perhaps communities could use devices such as these to take back control of their electricity generation.

Also, maybe it's time to ignite the old Edison vs. Tesla flame war again on /. again. ;)