Big Nuclear Battery, Coming Soon.....?

" without being blocked by Democrats"

All seems plausible but that part...

The promises sound great. The details are disappointingly lacking.

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Something also seems to have been mixed up in the communication:

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"...a modular nuclear thermal battery that works out of the box to drive any energy source needed. Most energy generation is steam, for example, and their 1 MW of co-processed heat can power an military base,...The best part: ...there is no coolant, no pumps, no external pipes...."

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What have I missed here? How can steam based energy generation work without pumps and piping?

In what thermal way might steam be utilized to leverage a heat source and not reasonably be considered a coolant?

How can one reasonably suggest that a system to gain useful work from a 1 MW heat source might be infallible, or otherwise melt-down-proof should the method of heat removal be degraded without a corresponding reduction in power?

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I'm a strong proponent of advancing nuclear power. The mismatch between promises and explanations makes me wonder if this promotion will be of net benefit to advancing nuclear power.

Some details...http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/startup-designs-trucksize-nuclear-reactor

Some of the details from that page:

With UPower's design, the nuclear reactor would be placed in a tall cylinder buried underground. Rather than remove heat from the core with water, company engineers have developed a system that's similar in concept to steam radiators.

The reactor is equipped with a number of vertical stainless steel pipes filled with a mixture of liquid and gas. Those pipes are slotted into channels, or holes, in a metal block at the base of the reactor, explains CEO Jacob DeWitte.

As the core produces heat, it causes the liquids at the bottom of the pipes to evaporate and rise to the top. That heat would then be converted into electricity using conventional generators. Removing the heat from these steel loops causes the gas to condense and drop to the bottom to begin the evaporation cycle again. "You don't need pumps and it's able to move the heat," DeWitte says. "It's a completely passive, self-contained phase change."

In a light water reactor, water acts to both moderate the nuclear reaction and to transport heat from the core. With the UPower design, the steel pipes are enclosed and would only carry away heat. The nuclear fuel would also fit into channels in the metal block at the base of the reactor..."

This appears to fall somewhere in the realm of prank, scam, and/or grandiose naivete'.

To begin with, nothing notable is novel or innovative here. What is described is essentially a natural circ boiling water reactor, with a suggestion that improvements might be made by using some other 'mixture of liquids and gas' in pace of light water.....and burying it in the ground.

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If the article above is to be believed, then UPowers website certainly seems misleading....

Suggesting that the technology is solid state, immune to meltdown/accidents, particularly robust against military attacks, or even 'walk away safe' merely because the coolant phase change heat transfer fluid has been switched from water to something like CO₂, ammonia, or hydrazine is, at least, mildly wackadoodle.

The absence of any redeeming innovation in the descriptions makes reviewing the numerous significant problems raised by the descriptions not worth while, but I will mention a couple that particularly stand out....

The suggestion that in this design, the phase change heat transfer fluid only carries heat away from the reactor, but does not affect the neutron population is absurd. Any effective phase change heat transfer fluid sufficiently close to the fuel to keep even the most temperature robust fuel compositions within acceptable temperatures generating even modest amounts of power expecting reasonable burn up, is going to behave as a moderator and possibly as a poison as well. The fact that the heat transfer fluid undergoes phase change means significant rapid changes in density and therefor significant rapid changes in moderation and poisoning of the neutron population.

The idea that geothermal horizontal loops optimized for natural circulation sufficient for heat rejection from the 1 MW system, might be constructed within a budget that would still allow the power to be sold competitively is also batshiite crazy.

Ooooh, just one more... the idea that a turbine generator might be run on steam from a system using only natural circulation, i.e. no pumps, is as uckfupped as trying to eat a soup sandwich with a football bat.

The part of that article that bothers me most is...

"That heat would then be converted into electricity using conventional generators."

It's kind of like the comments I used to see in complex code written by primadonna programmers..."Something magic happen here".

"an ,military base"? the phone number is actually Boston but the verbage on their page is child-like. I don't like it

That verbage was written by Hank Campbell, the site's owner and someone whom I've found is quite often politically outspoken. It's his site and so he can say anything he wants of course, but his political biases often figure prominently in his articles, oftentimes overshadowing the topic itself.

There are good science articles on Science 2.0 but not consistently so, and especially not Hank's more political pieces (unless of course one is into Democrat-bashing). IEEE's article at the link Rixter provided is the better read, IMO.

Similar deals and items were offered five years ago or so.

On behalf of employer, I tried to follow it up and there was no response, regardless of the multiple attempts to contact them. We had legitimate use for that level of power and had opportunity to feed excess to grid with all the necessary security and such.

Feasible at concept stage, but never got to offer commercial product.

this sounds like just a plain old radioisotope generator that russia made thousands of, or some scam based on that tech, anyway. they are simple to build. you just take a chunk of hot radioactive material and surround it with peltier device modules and aluminum heatsink fins, then you encase it in lesd, leaving the cooling fins sticking out. part of the power the device produces could be used to power fans that remove heat from the heatsink fins. peltiers are now being made that can withstand quite high temperatures. even in the 1950's russias little portable no fuel required nuclear powered thermoelectric power generators could be carried around by 2 or three people. no telling how much power you could produce making one the size of a conex crate... problem with russias units isthere is no record of how many were made, and several facilities were making them..also, they can be dismantled to make "dirty bombs" with, so kinda have to be guarded or theftproofed..far better idea just to slap peltiers on a woodburning stove ,or one of my bio-blasters, to power up your house

Thermoelectric generators use thermocouple junctions to generate electricity, not Peltier devices. These generators are notoriously inefficient but serve the purpose where extreme reliability is required. Deep-space probes all use RTGs for this reason. All of them. Here's a cutaway view of the one used on the Cassini probe:

That GPHS - the so-called 'General-Purpose Heat Source' - is just a polite way of saying "this here thingie is slug of pure plutonium."

UPower's product is different.

actually not even close, good graphic

"The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced nearly $67 million in nuclear energy research and infrastructure enhancement awards. 83 projects were selected from across the country based on their potential to create scientific breakthroughs that both help strengthen the nation's energy security and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

"The Department's support for cutting-edge nuclear science and engineering across our universities, national laboratories, and industry reflects the key role of nuclear energy in helping ensure America's low carbon future," said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. "These awards not only provide crucial funding for research and development, but also for the training and education of the next generation nuclear energy workforce that will enhance American leadership in the safe, secure and efficient use of nuclear energy here and around the world."

As part of the announcement, the DOE is awarding over $30 million through its Nuclear Energy Research Programs (NEUP) to support 44 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects to develop innovative technologies and solutions. These projects will be led by 30 U.S. universities in 24 states. Today's announcement also includes approximately $4 million to 19 universities for research reactor and infrastructure improvements - providing important safety- performance- and student education-related upgrades to the nation's 25 university research reactors as well as enhancing university research and training infrastructure.

The DOE is also awarding $20 million for 5 Integrated Research Projects (IRPs) that will deliver solutions to high priority nuclear energy research challenges, including instrumentation and vacuum drying systems associated with the storage of used nuclear fuel, an integrated approach to fluoride high temperature reactor technology development, and advanced instrumentation to support transient testing.

Additionally, $11 million will be awarded for 12 research and development projects led by U.S. universities, Department of Energy national laboratories and industry in support of the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies Crosscutting Technology Development Program (NEET CTD) to address crosscutting nuclear energy challenges. 2 infrastructure enhancement projects totaling over $1 million will be awarded to Department of Energy national laboratories to further reactor materials and instrumentation research.

Since 2009, the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy has awarded approximately $350 million to 98 U.S. colleges and universities to continue American leadership in clean energy innovation and to train the next generation of nuclear engineers and scientists through its university programs."

http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2014/08/doe-invests-67mm-to-advanced-nuclear-energy-technology.html

for the record.......I've always been in the minority that is pro-nuclear, safely of course

Has anyone figured out how this thing is a nuclear "battery" instead of a mini nuclear reactor. As far as I can see it doesn't store anything, and produces heat, not electricity.

Maybe it is "charged" with 12 years worth of heat in the form of molten salt by plugging it into a big nuclear plant, and after that it just produces heat until the salt solidifies.

It is not a battery. It's a small nuclear reactor. Sloppy reporting, that's all.

I gather that from the details, but even the UPower site says it's a battery:

always on, container-sized, truly carbon-free and emission-free nano-nuclear battery for remote and distributed generation

My guess is it is marketing, not sloppy reporting. A nano-nuclear battery sounds so much smaller and safer than a nuclear reactor.

It's sloppy, regardless of who wrote it. Perhaps Marketing misunderstands that you don't have to dumb down your product's description to make it palatable to the Masses, because the Masses aren't going to be buying one any time soon. Those who do understand the technology will see through the marketing hype and wonder who UPower Tech envisions as their potential customers? UPower also calls it a generator not two or three lines later. First it's a nano-nuclear battery and then it's a generator. Make up your bluddy minds, UPower. If they don't know the difference, perhaps they - or more likely, their Marketing person - should go back to cooking fries.

I wrote UPower questioning the use of 'battery' to describe their product (later calling it a 'generator') and this was their reply:

On occasion, the word battery is used, in part because it particularly seems of interest to journalists and lay people. It helps them understand that the unit is containerizable, transportable, more or less "plug and play" and could be used in "packs". A "battery" also does not require refueling, and provides a relatively constant level of energy. All of those characteristics make the word battery useful in some cases.

The word "generator" is certainly applicable because it is about the same size as a comparable diesel generator, and certainly generates electricity or could be used to cogenerate steam. It will be used in areas where traditional generators have been the main source of energy, so this can also be a useful word.

If you have uses for the technology, you would do well not to write the technology off yet. You will be happy to know that now that we are receiving funding (which will be published in due time due to the high profile nature of the investors), we will be remodeling the website, and it will include an advisory board page that will be impossible to write off even if you question our combined 20+ years in nuclear, and our MIT education. We do not have a "marketing person" since we are a team of about 5 engineers. Contrast that with many "nuclear startups" and you will see many come up short in design and real world experience.

Stay tuned, and if you are interested in joining our interest to purchase list, please let us know. It will be about 3 years before this list will start being executed.

A team 'of about' 5 engineers? What, you're not sure? You didn't count them?

An MIT education looks great on paper, but I know several MIT grads (two of them PhDs and one professor of some note) whom I wouldn't hire to sweep the floors. Lots of book-learning but nary a shred of common sense. Several MIT interns with whom I worked could not explain how a color CRT creates color images and why an Nd magnet creeps down an inclined aluminum plane whilst a similar, unmagnetised piece of metal slides down immediately. Pretty basic stuff, but they hadn't a clue.

Don't wave your MIT sheepskins under my nose expecting me to be impressed. I will be underwhelmed, trust me. No, show me what you know and how you would apply that knowledge. A degree only tells me that you have a degree.

I really don't want to be on a list , and expect to be "Executed" in 3 years….