[Tuckerfan]

Toshiba has talked something like this in the past. This new one is a bit smaller than the Toshiba model.

Hyperion Unveils Design of its Small Modular Nuclear Reactor, the Hyperion Power Module

At the recent Annual Winter Conference of the American Nuclear Society in Washington, and simultaneously at the “Powering Toward 2020” conference in London, England, Hyperion Power Generation Inc. revealed the design for the first version of its Hyperion Power Module (HPM), a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) that it intends to have licensed and manufactured at facilities in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The HPM is a compact (approx. 1.5m wide x 2.5m tall), sealed and self-contained, simple-to-operate nuclear power reactor, euphemistically referred to by the company as a “fission battery”. Over its 7-10 year operational life, the HPM will deliver 70 MW of thermal energy, or approximately 25 MWe. Each module will cost $50 million; initial deliveries, slated to begin in the second half of 2013, are being scheduled, the company says.

Much more at the link.

[Chaos Descending]

HPM, eh? Precursor to ZPM, no doubt.

[Midnight Funeral]

How do small size nuclear reactors stack up against similarly sized radioisotope thermoelectric generators in the power to mass stakes?

[oldfella1962]

How do small size nuclear reactors stack up against similarly sized radioisotope thermoelectric generators in the power to mass stakes?

Dude....mankind has been asking this question since the Bronze Age!
Why do fools fall in love? - is another burning question.

[Lanzman]

Originally Posted by Midnight Funeral

How do small size nuclear reactors stack up against similarly sized radioisotope thermoelectric generators in the power to mass stakes?

Well, radioisotope thermoelectric is really only suited to small applications . . . powering a deep-space probe that's going out too far for solar panels, for example . . . not commercial power generation. RTE, if I recall, generates a relatively low amount of power but does so over a very long time. Feeding the power grid requires large amounts of power pretty much all the time.

That said, I wonder if you could gang a whole bunch of RTEs and get something commercially useful out of it?

[Tuckerfan]

Originally Posted by Lanzman

Well, radioisotope thermoelectric is really only suited to small applications . . . powering a deep-space probe that's going out too far for solar panels, for example . . . not commercial power generation. RTE, if I recall, generates a relatively low amount of power but does so over a very long time. Feeding the power grid requires large amounts of power pretty much all the time.

That said, I wonder if you could gang a whole bunch of RTEs and get something commercially useful out of it?

My understanding is that this wouldn't be economically feasible and you'd be better off using conventional nuclear technology.

[Order2Chaos]

I just went to a presentation on that very topic on Thursday. RTE's are basically obsolete. Teh new hotness is Stirling Radioisotope Generators (two opposed to minimize vibration) - almost the same size, 4x the efficiency, but they do have moving parts.

There's still about one to two orders of magnitude difference in energy density between SRG's and nuclear reactors.