Brent Kearney

This is an interesting development: hot-tub sized, subterranean nuclear power plants that produce enough electricity to power 20,000 average American homes (25 MWe) for 7 to 10 years, at a cost of $2500 per home. The company building them, Hyperion, says that the “Hyperion Power Module” (HPM) will be mass-produced within 5 years. There is already a back-order for the units.

The company, of course, claims that the nukes are a “clean” energy source because they produce no greenhouse gasses. It may be true that the mini power plants don’t directly release CO₂, but the extraction and enrichment process for nuclear fuel is notorious for it’s heavy carbon footprint. Not to mention all of the energy that goes into the construction and transportation of these things.

In any discussion of nuclear power, the elephant in the room is it’s by-product, radioactive nuclear waste. Possibly the most environmentally destructive thing on Earth. Hyperion claims:

The waste produced after five years of operation is approximately the size of a softball and is a good candidate for fuel recycling.

A healthy dose of skepticism is in order.

All of that aside, however, the HPM would solve a lot of problems around the world today. Five years isn’t very long, considering that many governments are currently investing in environmentally devastating large-scale nuclear power plants that will take 20 heavily-polluting years to build.

Then again, progress towards sustainable clean energy sources such as solar power continues to grow by leaps and bounds. With any luck, the promise of the HPM may stall government plans to build giant nuclear reactors, and in the mean time, sustainable clean energy output catches up.