Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     One of the technologies that can help decentralize the national power grid already exists in the form of a micro reactor or Nuclear battery. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have convened an industry collaboration called the Advanced Nuclear and Production Expert Group (ANPEG). The purpose of this collaboration is to develop a Nuclear battery to join this new modern market. The development of Nuclear Batteries will include factory production, modular package delivery, minimal site preparation and standardized interoperability with processes that can directly utilize the heat and/or electricity generated to produce goods and services on site directly for local consumption and trade. This new energy market can be free from the need from long distance fuel pipelines and large national grids.
     A Nuclear battery is a streamlined object about the size of a large automobile. It would be able to fit into a standard twenty-foot-long ISO shipping container. Just like new cars, it would roll off an automated assembly line. Thousands can be industrially mass produced.
     Norman Foster is the o-founder of ANPEG. He said, “Like new cars, the Nuclear battery would roll off an automated assembly line, one of mass produced thousands. Plugged into a similar-sized conversion module, its typical 10 MW output could power 8,000 homes or a cluster of skyscrapers, a mid-sized data center or a desalination plant for 150,000 people. Residual heat could be used locally for building heat or food production instead of being discarded. The transmission grid would be nano-sized and buried – no more pylons and overhead cables to fail during extreme weather events.”
     This local flexibility is a key attraction for the use of such systems in the developing world. These Nuclear Batteries could be distributed to any urban, rural, or maritime location and put into service with very little setup time required. They will be able to provide electricity, clean water and other important community services.
      Iain MacDonald is also an ANPEG co-founder. He said, “The Nuclear battery is a fundamental energy advance in both form and function, shifting the way nuclear is perceived by the pubic and stakeholders and differentiating it from all other energy sources in its capability to address adaptation to climate change, and standard of living in one clean system.”
      Nuclear Batteries are not a new concept. Since the 1960s, the U.S. military has been hauling small nuclear reactors around behind trucks. Nuclear Batteries are also used in submarines and to power satellites on deep space missions. Westinghouse has already begun to implement such batteries with their WEC eVinci Nuclear battery.
      An ex-Liberty ship fitted with a nuclear battery powered the construction of the Panama Canal from 1968 to 1975. More recently, a NASA/Los Alamos team, headed by an ANPEG member named Patrick McClure developed a nuclear battery system called Kilopower. Kilopower is a nano-scale, affordable fission nuclear power system that could be used to power long durations stays on the Moon, Mars and other planetary surfaces.
Please read Part 3