I don't really get the "make it small enough to fit on a truck" thing. The main impediment for nuclear is cost, and then being able to build reactors on an assembly line would be a significant advantage. But how much of that advantage is retained if the product comes on more than one truck and the thing that comes is the reactor, the fuel and the turbines whereas the concrete gets poured on-site? It seems like that should get you nearly all of the cost savings from mass production but then you get a full-sized reactor that can power a city instead of something that can only replace a diesel generator.

▲ godelski 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think you're missing some use cases and some parameters.

For the average home, this doesn't make sense. But for a hospital? A data center? There are plenty of places that are happy to pay a premium for an independent, redundant, and/or emergency power source. Somewhere like a hospital is going to get big advantages from something like this because it not only provides electricity but hot water (reducing the electrical demand that would go to hot water creation).

There are also big advantages to remote places. Getting power in Alaska[0]. It's even difficult to get it in places like Alberta or Montana, both of which will also would take advantage of the heat source.

Even at 5 years, this is more reliable than something like a gas generator and has a lot of logistical advantages. This says it does 1MW or electric power and 1.9MW of thermal. I found a 1MW generator[1], and it looks to consume between 77-87 gal/hr. A gallon weighs 7lbs, so 80 gal is 560lbs and takes 0.3m3. At one day's consumption (1920 gal) you need to be able to store over 13klbs and it'll take up 7.3m3 (not including the volume of the container and that it needs to be stored somewhere that is dry but also well ventilated). On top of that, diesel has a self life of 6mo (can extend to a year), so you're going to be doing a lot of deliveries...

Given that, I can see a lot of places that would gladly make those trade-offs.

Also, if it can fit self-contained in a container, the parts are going to be much smaller. You gotta start somewhere, right? Doesn't seem a bad idea to start with edge customers who are willing to pay a premium.

[0] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-AK/72h/hourly

[1] https://mart.cummins.com/imagelibrary/data/assetfiles/007036...

▲ AnthonyMouse a day ago | parent [-]

> But for a hospital? A data center? There are plenty of places that are happy to pay a premium for an independent, redundant, and/or emergency power source.

Those places are just going to keep a diesel generator, because they only need it once or twice a year and it costs less.

> Somewhere like a hospital is going to get big advantages from something like this because it not only provides electricity but hot water (reducing the electrical demand that would go to hot water creation).

Diesel generators can do the same thing. Meanwhile on ordinary days the power would be supplied from the grid, which is even cheaper than diesel generators.

> There are also big advantages to remote places. Getting power in Alaska

But how many people need a MW of continuous power in the wilderness and are willing to pay that much for it?

The major industry in those areas is oil and gas.

> I found a 1MW generator[1], and it looks to consume between 77-87 gal/hr.

Diesel generators are typically used for emergency power and then the fuel consumption isn't a major concern because they're infrequently used.

Power plants for continuous stationary use will typically use the same generation methods as the grid and can then attach to natural gas pipelines or use generation methods like wind/solar/hydro that don't consume fuel.

For transient use you'd need to move fuel, but in the alternative you have to move the reactor.

> Doesn't seem a bad idea to start with edge customers who are willing to pay a premium.

Sure, but who actually are they? What usage needs a MW of continuous power but has to be in a place that can't connect to the grid? Remote mining operations maybe? But their equipment is designed to run directly on liquid fuels because electricity is assumed to be unavailable.

It's not impossible that it exists but it doesn't seem like a huge market.

	▲	godelski 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, maybe a hospital is not the best example, but it's just serving as a way to see how it is useful. Was just a stand in for something relatable where it was understood how much someone would be willing to pay for a backup. But I'll get to better examples in a second. `> Diesel generators are typically used for emergency power` Yes, but you aren't comparing the cost of storing and delivering diesel. Yes, grid power will be cheaper but is that difference than the costs of storing, transporting, and the need to constantly check? Is it cheaper than the handover time? The time lost when electricity is down. Can you smoothly hand over generation? Is it cheaper than the cost of the gas having spoiled? These mistakes happen and they can be quite costly when it does. `> but it doesn't seem like a huge market.` It definitely is not a huge market. That's why there's a premium. But there are people that need and will pay for it. I'm also willing to bet you're significantly underestimating how many remote locations there are. Let's test ourselves. (I got the answer wrong btw and I'm willing to bet most people do.) How many research stations are there in Antarctica? Make a guess first. Here's the answer and a link[0]. And here's for the Arctic[1] (there's more!). These don't even include secret sites! Hell, I'm sure there's even a few towns in Norway[2,3] and Alaska[4], or elsewhere[5] that would be lifetime customers. 1MW isn't close to enough power to supply some of those cities but I would be surprised if they didn't want a highly reliable 1MW source of power and 2MW of heat and weren't willing to pay a high price for it. That energy goes a long way in emergencies. You're right that many of these locations have oil and gas as major industries but you are not considering two factors. 1) That still needs to be processed. You can't use oil or gas in their raw form (okay, sometimes gas but it still may contain contaminants that need to be separated). 2) You're eating your own supply. It's a lot easier to just export everything than to portion everything out. This is especially true when the product expires. If you don't rely on your own export then you never have to make the choice between "do I have enough for myself" when the product is in high demand elsewhere. Things like this have extremely high demand for military sites. They'll pay way more to not have to have constant deliveries. We're not even just talking places like nuclear launch sites. There's hundreds of remote listening locations. There's plenty of places that you add one of these to and they could run completely automated. If we're talking about a really remote location (there are quite a lot of these) then which is cheaper? Once every 5 years helicopter delivery or a constant delivery every 6 mo by truck? That first option could be a lot cheaper. You don't even need to even make a road! Certainly one of these options is much faster. Again, you're right, in that this isn't a technology we're going to see everywhere (especially at a high price point). But that's a very different thing than "there's no point in building this". I'm just trying to answer the latter question because that's what you put into question. I'm still willing to bet there's a bigger market for this kind of stuff than you would think. And to be clear, I don't think you're dumb or unimaginative or anything. I see you around here a lot, so I know you're smart. I just think with something like this it's a "everything is an edge case" type of situation, where it is very hard to actually get a good picture. First order approximations won't get you anywhere near the right answer. They're really hard to guesstimate without some expertise. I only know some surface level because I did some work with nuclear tech and we had to find applications. But what I know is that there's a lot of situations I'm not even aware of because even though they are edge cases we're talking about edge cases on the scale of billions. Even serving just 0.00001% of that is probably more than enough to warrant a product like this and make a profit. [0] Wiki lists 44 permanently active stations and and 45 summer only ones. There's a map below the listing. I was at least 50% off on my estimate. I thought at most there would be 2 dozen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctic... [1] There's 57 active stations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_stations_in_t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerfest_(town) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honningsv%C3%A5g [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utqiagvik,_Alaska [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_northernmost_settlemen...