Thursday, August 14, 2008

First Order for "small, compact, transportable, nuclear power reactor"?

From CleanTechnica:
Hyperion Power Generation issued a press release on August 12, 2008 announcing that their first customer had signed a letter of intent (LOI) to purchase 6 Hyperion Power ModulesTM (HPM), which the company describes as “a small, compact, transportable, nuclear power reactor”.

Each HPM will be priced at approximately $25 million. The company did not disclose an expected shipping date for the first HPM, but the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently lists their scheduled manufacturing license review as starting in 2012 with an projected completion sometime in 2015. (Ref - Periodic Briefing on New Reactor Issues dated February 20, 2008 - PDF.)

Hyperion Power Generation’s web site is a bit shy on the details of the design, which is to be expected. The site’s evident goal is to attract interested customers using rather conventional marketing techniques; no one will get involved in the purchase of even a “small” nuclear reactor without serious reviews of significantly more detailed technical materials.

After all, each module costs roughly $25 million (when ordered in significant quantities) and will supply enough heat to produce about 25 MW of electricity when connected to an efficient steam turbine cycle. Those are small numbers in the nuclear power world, but still significant to most businesses and small towns....MORE