Backyard Nuclear Reactor
Need more power? On June 13, 2013, you can have your ordered filled for your own nuclear reactor.
- - photo via treehugger.com
Safety is assured because:
In traditional reactors, you’ve got to have a moderator and then you’ve also got to have some way to cool it so it doesn’t get out of hand. In our nation’s light water reactors, the water serves as both the moderator and the coolant. So the moderator actually makes it go and a cooling system keeps it from going too far.
Our fuel is very unique. It’s uranium hydride. UH3 is the chemical formula. Low-enriched, about 10 percent [uranium isotope]-235, the rest is U-238. By comparison, bomb-grade fuel is about 98 percent enriched.
You can’t turn our fuel into a bomb.You’d have to re-enrich, re-process the fuel, so you might as well start with yellowcake. That’s one of the neat safety features of our reactor. For nefarious purposes, our reactor has absolutely no value whatsoever.
Link and photo via treehugger.com.
Nice–it’s probably ungodly expensive, but if I had a lot of money I could definately see myself doing that.