X-energy has developed the Xe-Mobile – a power generation system that can be delivered to the point of electricity need and quickly begin generating power. Features of the Xe-Mobile include:
• Rail, truck, and sea transport compatibility
• Components housed cargo containers
• Can operate at full power for more than 3 years
• Utilizes TRISO fuel, due to high maturity & a strong safety case
• Produces 2-7 MWe of electrical power
• Multiple voltage outputs available
BWXT is building the first 1-5 Megawatt Pele micro nuclear reactor design and it will be completed in 2024, fueled and operational in 2025. In July, 2023, BWXT was also selected to supply the nuclear reactor and fuel for the DRACO nuclear thermal rocket (formally known as the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations). The DRACO nuclear thermal rocket is to be launched into orbit by 2026 on a regular chemical rocket. It would then provide propulsion in orbit. Miller said that BWXT is renovating a 170,000-square-foot building that will host both DRACO and Pele during assembly.
DOD’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), US Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the US Army Corps of Engineers, as well as with industry partners are working together on this. DOD’s Strategic Capabilities Office awarded a $300 million contract to BWXT to complete and deliver a full-scale transportable high-temperature gas-cooled microreactor prototype in 2024 for testing at the Idaho National Laboratory. Design approvals were made by the Department of Energy and the NRC.
The US Navy has nearly 100 nuclear reactors. All US submarines (about 71) are nuclear powered and 11 aircraft carriers (and two more under construction) each have two nuclear reactors. There are five more with three moored training ships (MTS) and two land-based training plants.
The US army has many remote military bases which are difficult and expensive to supply with oil and gas. This would be like the bases in dangerous areas of the middle where the supply trucks are at risk from bombers.
There are commercial applications where energy is currently expensive. There are remote locations on islands or near the poles. Oil and gas and mining operations can be in locations that are difficult to supply with energy.
BWXT has made TRISO fuel in the past and they are making TRISO fuel with restarted old production lines. They even brought in retired and old personnel to operate the lines. BWXT can make TRISO with any level of uranium enrichment. The US military has stockpiles and production of highly enriched uranium.
Ukraine War and Getting the US Back Into Commercial Nuclear Fuel Production
The top uranium-producing countries in 2022:
Kazakhstan: 43% of the world’s uranium supply
Canada: 15% of the world’s uranium supply
Namibia: 11% of the world’s uranium supply
Ukraine: 11th largest producer in 2022
Australia: 4,192 tonnes
Uzbekistan: 3,500 tonnes
Russia: 2,635 tonnes
Niger: 2,248 tonnes
China: 1,885 tonnes
In 2022, mined uranium covered only 74% of global demand. The United States purchased 27% of its uranium from Canada, 25% from Kazakhstan, and 12% from Russia. U.S. civilian nuclear power reactors bought 40.5 million pounds U3O8e of deliveries from U.S. suppliers and foreign suppliers during 2022. This was at weighted-average price of $39.08 per pound U3O8e. The US does not want to buy nearly 5 million pounds of U3O8e from Russia.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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I read a really long time ago about a researcher who made a particle accelerator that was very, very short. It was getting super high particle speeds from 2 meter lengths or something like that. If I remember correctly, he used a laser or microwaves to “surf” the particles on the light waves. I never heard much else about it. Maybe it just didn’t have a good enough reason to be used. What if they could make such a thing and then use it for particle accelerated nuclear reactors using molten salts? If someone hit it, the radiation would be deadly, but it would freeze in place.
All the aircraft carriers have multiple reactors, so the total number of operating US Navy reactors exceeds 100.
They do know Russia tried that right. Also abandon the project and lost dozens of their reactors that are still being found today by civilians.
Could have been demonstrated any time since the ’70s with BISO.
Try fielding that in a real war zone like Eastern Ukraine. Smoking one of these with simple artillery is a good way to turn a ‘green zone’ into a ghost town.
Where is the downvote button.
Radiation is just radiation, not a bugbear.
TRISO fuel design makes runaway reactions impossible. It’ll get hot. It won’t get explodey.
So, TRISO is going to protect from dispersing the reactor with an artillery shell? Hot particles everywhere = ghost town.
What we have here is one or several high ranking logistics officers with a
spreadsheet showing a net savings of $10M over a decade in Greenland based on an underprediction of procurement, staffing and lifecycle costs. Then we have Representatives in Virgina that go out and get this pork for BWXT and X-energy (Kam Ghaffarian).
Some sources report they’ll make syn-fuel with the little TRISO reactors too. Whatever – maybe it’ll work at an air base in Greenland, but I’m pretty sure it would be a target in a forward operating situation.
Lets see one built. None of this technology is new. There is no new enabling tech or knowledge. There appears to be the will to bring back army reactors. Heat pipes are great for cooling CPUs. One actual problem with heat pipe reactors is that neutrons beam out along the heat pipes. The heat pipes are actually beam ports. Maybe that could be managed by bending them around some angle – the heatpipe in this laptop is a U-shape.
Bury the shipping container sized nuclear power reactor. This would be even safer than a fuel depot. 1MW is about 1000 HP generator. 70 gallons per hour on at full power. 5 MW would be like a 5000 HP generator consuming 350 gallons per hour. 8000 gallons per day. 160 barrels per day. Large fuel trucks 5500-11600 gallons. About one fuel truck every day. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/09/diesel-truck-explosion-closes-busy-pa-interstate/2148355/
The daily fuel truck would be above ground and exposed while pumping into underground diesel storage tanks.
If the reactor is buried 50-100 feet below ground, then what artillery shell is going to hit it?
It only has to be buried enough to prevent dispersion, not destruction. A hot hole in the ground is an acceptable war outcome. The legacy of landmined areas is far deadlier, affects huge areas for decades, and is grudgingly accepted as an unfortunate side effect of war.
Unlike mines, if the TRISO does get dispersed, it is pretty straightforward to detect and collect.
Will people die from an artillery attack?
Probably.
Will more people die from an artillery attack on a TRISO reactor than die providing fuel for a diesel generator?
Could go either way. Depends on the circumstances of each.
I’m expressing healthy skepticism with towards the proposed toy for the Army. If it is used on a military base outside of conflict, it won’t be a target. It certainly won’t be a target so long as we continue to engage Bedouins instead of more equal opponents.
When I think of “what is a megawatt or five” I think in terms of what kind of fluid needs to be moving, just like you did: 350 gallons of fuel per hour… but actually, the diesel is moving 14,249 cubic meters and over 16 tons of exhaust per hour (AFR = 14.5). The electrical output of any power generation equipment has at least 3X the power in a moving fluid, so now imagine how that would work with a quasi-solid-state reactor core boiling sodium in tubes, which don’t have that much surface area to conduct heat through to the Rankine back-end of the machine. Given the top down mandate to design the solid-state TRISO reactor, and given that 99.5% of engineers agree with those funding their efforts (especially with pork during peacetime), they’ll build something… Although, when power is expressed in terms of the thermodynamics of working fluid, it is easy to see why most previous little army reactors boiled water.
Inlet pressure for a low pressure turbine at my BWR is about 200 psig. This is very similar to the steam pressure used in one of the last triple-expansion steam engines used on the Liberty ships in the 1940s. Those engines developed just about 2MW shaft power.
If you wanted an ugly, cheap and robust solution, boil water at 200 psig and send it through a triple-expansion steam engine. Install three steam engines; two in standby. But alas, they don’t really need this thing. It is just a way to keep people employed in VA, MD and ID.
If your committed to putting a reactor on the battle field, then unit cost is not an issue: make a little BWR with TRISO compacts for fuel pellets in stainless steel cladding – that’s about as accident tolerant as it gets.
Put the steam engines in containers. Get an Evoqua 1,200 GPM reverse osmosis trailer. Reflooding isn’t a problem with a 200 psi keg, which could be a thin-walled vessel welded tight.
Nobody is putting a nuclear reactor within range of tube artillery. This is an absurd strawman argument.
not sure the argument is absurd considering you can find numerous articles about the DOD pursuing synthetic fuel production. To put the reactor within 15 miles of a conflict would indeed be absurd though – that was my point. Actually, to field this in any conflict with any non-Bedouin foe would be absurd – also my point. The point of the Army is to ‘stay frosty’ – not reduce carbon footprint.
you must live on the internet blogosphere to even know how to use the phrase ‘strawman argument’ correctly.
not even sure why I bother to talk reason to ‘people like you’