Nuke to the Future

[YankeyMCC]

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The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It’s shaped like a sake cup, filled with a uranium hydride core and surrounded by a hydrogen


Invented by scientist Otis Peterson, Hyperion’s patent for a hydride reactor is still pending.
atmosphere. Encase it in concrete, truck it to a site, bury it underground, hook it up to a steam turbine and, voila, one would generate enough electricity to power a 25,000-home community for at least five years.

The company Hyperion Power Generation was formed last month to develop the nuclear fission reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory and take it into the private sector. 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.

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.
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LANL scientist Otis Peterson filed the patent for the nuclear fission reactor in 2003. In theory, the reactor uses uranium crystals and hydrogen isotopes to create an internal, self-regulating balance. Because it’s so new, anti-nuclear power activists aren’t quite sure what to make of it yet. But ‘skeptical’ is perhaps too gentle a word for their initial reactions to Hyperion’s claims of a “clean” energy source.
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“This whole idea is loony and not worthy of too much attention,” Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello says. “Of course, factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it’s possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost.”
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http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/outtake-112107-nuke-to-the-future.php

Here's the companies web site: http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Well we haven't gotten flying cars but maybe we'll get the 'portable nuke reactor' SF trope.

I'm a supporter of the idea that we need to look to nuclear energy to at the very least get us through a crisis point, and of course the hype of this story would lead to excitment from that perspective. However, something doesn't sit right, certainly any fission, waste generating product needs much regulations and monitoring and to have such a device easily distributed and used worries me from the point of logistics of that regulations and monitoring. And I don't know enough about the tech to decide if it is even feasible and if feasible if it is reasonably safe, so I'd be interested in the more expert here make comment on those aspects.