A while back there was some flap over a japanese corporation, I think it was toshiba, planning to sell a solid state, RTG nuclear reactor on the private market.

I heard some towns in alaska were seriously looking at buying some.

What came of that, was it just a hoax?

It took me about a minute to Google this up from December 2007
LINK
Doesn't look like a hoax to me.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

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Just happened to be reading Ken Silverstein's "Radioactive Boy Scout", about David Hahn, who got a long way towards achieving this on his own. See: http://www.harpers.org/archive/1998/11/0059750 for a copy of Silversteins original article that turned into the book.
John

JohnD. Loved that book. Now ,beryllium has more nuclei per cubic centimeter than any other metal, so it's used as a neutron reflector. If any stray neutrons are produced by ambient cosmic ray showers, a beryllium clad funnel ought to channel them towards a fissile target. So instead of suntanning with one of those aluminum foil reflectors to speed up the ultraviolet/melatonin....a beryllium clad one ought to help you generate your own little reactor. You just hold the depleted uranium in your teeth, and smile for the camera when the local newspaper sends out a photographer. nice. pete.

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov

Oh, great - no nasty control rods, no, just a bunch of liquid lithium metal. Great, of we have all heard how control rods are such a problem...NOT. I would not want a leak of hot flowing lithium in my neighborhood - especially if it is raining and especially if it has radioactive contamination.

This is a dumb idea - I vote for nowhere near my biosphere.

Vanamonde, in several different threads that discuss nuclear power, you seem opposed more on principle than anything else. I could be wrong- So I'm asking if that is the case.

So you don't know that the control rods where one of the contributing factors of the Chernobyl disaster, which is probably why they mentioned them at all.

Or that liquid Lithium is used because at the temperatures involved, it is much better than eg. water which would be highly corrosive as well as at a pressure where a steam explosion would be a serious risk.

Sorry, your objections don't seem to be based in knowledge.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

My objection has not to liquid Lithium so much as Toshiba's copy that seems to sell it as superior to control rods for some reason. I do see your point, especially since the discovery that hot water in a nuclear accident can create a high pressure bubble of hydrogen (as discovered in the Three Mile Island meltdown).

My objection to all fission and use of fission by-products in this biosphere is based mostly on the history and the unsolved issue of the long term economics of the industry. With a solution to the waste problem, it just seems irresponsible on the principle.

You are correct. I am a retired antinuclear activist and well known by the DOE. Hey, we have a prefectly good nuclear power planet 1 A.U. away that is not going anywhere for billions of years, let's us it exclusivity, at least until we can find or build another biosphere as backup before mess this one up even more.

Ok then that is your position and I can respect that.

However, I can also recommend that you consider (Even after all this time) the idea that you may be wrong.

Solar power is quite limited in its usability and as a resource.

Nuclear power is actually safer and cleaner than ANYTHING we are currently doing.

It also has a much better history.

In fact, a better history than.... Grain Silos.

he told u
actually i heard about this when i started my research on nuclear power

I endorse this post.

Um, the 200 kW Toshiba Micronuke is a hoax.

I don't think there are any serious efforts to design small commercial reactors. Economy of scale is critical to making nuclear power possible; there is too much overhead in fueling, inspecting, maintaining, and regulating a nuclear reactor for a small plant to ever be economical for commercial generation.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

OK, but now I'm confused. From that link..
"It was a hoax" is supposedly a link to a wikipedia page, but no such page actually exists when you click the link. So their proof that it is a hoax doesn't exist. I don't know what to think now.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

Seems real to me. Try Googling "Toshiba 4S"

One of the hits:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear...s2.html#_ftn12

Nice find geonuc. And that lead me to this link from the construction firm that apparently is doing the project for Galena, Alaska.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

Hmmm ... I think maybe the company I work for should get in on that action. I'd like an expenses paid trip to Alaska.

Alaska is beautiful, been there on vacation, but Galena apparently is in the middle of absolutely no where (population 675).

By the way, whatever happened to Professor Tanhauser?

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

The original debunking.

The 4S design is a real design, but different than the one in the hoax. The 4S is a 10MW, sodium cooled LMR.

The tip-off for the hoax for me was the really low power output and the dates; anything that was really going to be built in 2008/2009 would already have either a general design certification or a site-specific design certification in Japan and in the US--and I'd have seen it if it existed. In fact, the 4S itself has no such certification, and consequently could not possibly be built by 2009. I could not find a Toshiba press release to back up the original nextenergynews.com article either.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

I guess you're right. I thought perhaps the 4S was an up-powered version.

The original link said they were to begin marketing in the US starting in 2009, not have one built.