“The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.” “Next Energy News, Dec. 17, 2008”The biggest reason energy is costly and, in many cases, scarce is that it is available mainly through massive bureaucracies. In the early 20th century, bureaucratic involvement in creating large national electrical systems around the world was extraordinarily positive and progressive. Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, has a rule about both government and corporate bureaucracies: The first generation are enlightened, the second are useful, the third are competent, the fourth are mediocre, and the fifth and beyond are oppressive.
If you calculate that the length of a bureaucratic generation is approximately ten years, most energy regulators around the world are now at stage five. That means that the conditions are ripe for a fundamental breakthrough: the democratization of energy production.
Over the next two decades, millions of people will achieve energy independence from large bureaucracies. A key means for this breakthrough will be new micro nuclear generators the size of a garage that are already being sold by Toshiba and a number of other companies.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
The price per reactor right now is $25 million, which means 7,500 of these units could provide enough electricity for all residential usage in the United States for a one-time investment of $175 billion, amortized over the next 40 years.
It’s both a bargain and a breakthrough that energy bureaucrats will surely hate and oppose with every possible roadblock.
