IMBY
Irradiated by Stingray
One of the big problems in the ongoing “debate” about energy is that while everybody is for non-oil/coal/gas power production, nobody rural is willing to give up the thousands and thousands of acres necessary to get adequate surface area for widespread solar power, and likewise with wind generation, environmentalists won’t allow us to dam more rivers for hydroelectric, and roughly 99.99999% of the population goes utterly apeshit at even the most whispered mention of the word “nuclear,” regardless of whether they even passed basic high school physics (or even took it at all).
“That’s dangerous and/or unsightly!” begins the indignant cry of the great modern pantywaist. “Not in my back yard!” And thus, we have the term “NIMBY” for this wonderful and widespread class that can’t make up its shared six brain cells about what it wants.
Previously, I’ve mentioned the Toshiba 4S, a small reactor with an above-ground footprint of 72 × 52.5 x 36 ft, designed to produce 10MW. Galena, Alaska has been trying to get one installed to support their 700 residents rather than bringing diesel fuel in by barge in the few times of the year the Yukon river isn’t frozen over. It’s a neat little package, and for the power production levels, it is little.
But as usual, the word “nuclear” inspires immediate, prolonged, and voiciferous pants-shitting throughout the land. “Nooo! It’s daaaangerous! We want power, but we don’t want anything to actually, y’know, have to change to get it! NOT IN MY BACK YARD!”
Well fuck that noise. The long leg of our fence is 343 feet. The short leg is way over 72′ as well. Astute readers may have guessed where I’m going with this.
Hey, Toshiba! IN MY BACK YARD!
10MW will be enough to power if not all, then at least a non-trivial portion of White Rock, Los Alamos’ detached suburb where we live. The reactor for Galena is slated to provide power to approximately 700 people, as soon as the NRC stops being a bunch of chickens and approves it. A quick tour of google suggests a conservative estimate that 1mw is enough for 200 homes, with the far end of the spectrum suggesting up to 300 homes per megawatt. If those numbers are to be trusted (and I admit I could stand to do a bit more digging on this), my back yard could provide clean, safe, efficient power for 2000 homes – most of White Rock. No more carbon footprint for all those houses. I HAVE SLAIN GLOBAL WARMING!
I have two ulterior motives with this plan. First and foremost, I want to be able to thumb my nose and have the solid ground to mock the ever-loving hell out of every “green” NIMBY for the rest of my natural life. Second, the only tangible I would like in exchange for donating 3780 square feet of my property is free power from the reactor for my own use. Hell, we’ll be providing security while we’re here anyway.
It’s entirely possible that the neighbors won’t like this plan, but y’know what? Screw ‘em. It’s not in their back yard.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Be the first guy on your block to be the last guy on your block…
I like the idea of the Toshiba, too.
Is the pebble-bed concept getting anywhere?
Regards,
August 13th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
About seven years ago I invested in a company called Ballard Power (BLDP), a producer of fuel cells. It was supposed at the time that fuel cells were ideal for bringing power to remote areas well off the grid. The company was also developing a few cell small enough to fit in a car. Out of curiosity I checked the stock price today and found that it’s down to four and a half bucks. I also read that the founder of the company died a week ago. I’m actually surprised the company is around at all because in the national debate over energy, I never hear fuel cells even mentioned anymore. But, Sting, let me know when your reactor is up and running. We can open a munitions company to take advantage of the depleted uranium. We’ll put it in Santa Fe of course. Muhahaha!
August 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I’d far rather have a nuke in my LITTLE town than cover the west with solar panels. (Back yard is not quite big enough.)
August 13th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
They probably think the word “toxic waste” is synonymous with “nuclear waste”.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Heh, this from someone who just ranted about the IRS.
Are you sure you want these guys breathing down your neck?
August 14th, 2008 at 9:37 am
The problem Toshiba is having is not with NIMBYs … it is with the NRC.
The NRC is insisting Toshiba go through the same legal process that they put full sized water-cooled reactors through.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:41 am
You’re obviously out of the loop.
NIMBYs have been replaced with BANANAs:
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
And to hell with your property rights.
I want one of those reactors myself.
And screw the neighbors.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Paules: Well, of course you wouldn’t; fuel cells turn fuel into energy.
But they don’t make energy from nothing, and you gotta have the fuel; that’s what the real “debate” is about, and fuel cells can’t really change it.
The fuels (oil, alcohol, or hydrogen, in the real of plausibility) all have problems unrelated to using fuel cells to get power out of them. Oil is expensive and imported, alcohol is a boondoggle, and you need nuclear power to make hydrogen in useful quantities unless you’re making it from oil; see oil above.
(On the plus side, they are starting to be used to provide power for electronics, I hear, and for portable, silent generation of power for military applications, as backup generators, etc.
They’re pretty useful things, but not at that level.)
August 20th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Semi-related: I have a question about the notion of open space necessary for solar energy production.
Why are the only good solutions big solutions?
What percentage of the average household electrical need can be supplied by rooftop panels? A third? A quarter? If not all, then isn’t some better than none?
The attraction (IMO) of a backyard nuke is that it’s small and local. But isn’t your comparison of this approach to panelling thousands of acres of land sort of apples to oranges?
Why does so much of our municipal power need to be supplied by monolithic mega-sized engineering projects in remote areas and then piped in? What—are government and industry in colusion to monopolize our access to power?
August 20th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Apples to oranges in the sense of private power versus public power, yes, but in the sense of “here is an energy source often touted as giving us ‘clean’ and carbon-dioxide-free power, but I can offer you a power source that not only does that, but is so compact it can fit in a private individual’s back yard- AND he can sell it or give it to thousands of his neighbors, as would have required a large municipal project before.”
As backyard reactors are currently not legal (nor could we afford one), solar panels are in fact on our agenda. However, howevermuch individual supplementation helps, large-scale solutions that could power society almost fully would be better- and if they could be privatized… well, that would just be the whole pinata, right there.
What—are government and industry in colusion to monopolize our access to power?
As a great rabbit once said, “Mmmmmm… could be!”
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Ugh. NIMBYs and BANANAs. In previous life I sometimes helped site and permit power plants. And landfills. An ugly, but necessary job, and one, IMO that needed to be done by someone who cared. There is not a vile, profane name you can hurl at me that I have not been called in public.
Everyone wants to flip a switch or push a button and have 24×7 power on demand – and to drop the trash off at the end of the drive once a week and forget about it… but NO ONE wants a power plant or landfill in “their” backyard.
And today our backyards are getting bigger and bigger. “Not in my back yard” is being replaced with “not in my county” or “not in my state.” “Oh, and don’t bother me about that annoying recycling and energy conservation crap either.”
The bastards deserve to freeze in a dark pile of trash.
Oh and the mini-nukes sound cool, but I think we’ll pass. We live 4 miles from Prairie Island nuclear plant. Minnesota isn’t much of a place for solar, but we’re keeping our eyes on new wind turbine and fuel cell technology.