This could be the future: "you take a portable nuclear reactor (that is the size of a hot tub) to the site, bury it underground, hook it up to a steam turbine and, generate enough electricity to power a 25,000-home community for at least five years." Hyperion Power Generation, a company that was formed recently has developed the nuclear fission reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory and plans on taking it to the private sector. The reactor is shaped like a sake cup, filled with a uranium hydride core and surrounded by a hydrogen atmosphere and encased in concrete. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors. The reactors would produce 27 megawatts worth of thermal energy. The reactor (Hyperion prefers to call it a drive or a battery or a module) is self-contained, involves no moving parts and doesn't require a human operator.

In theory this reactor seems to be a perfect solution to power-generation woes but there are plenty of skeptics and resistors out there who are shooing the idea. Because it's so new, anti-nuclear power activists aren't quite sure what to make of it yet. "This whole idea is loony and not worthy of too much attention," Los Alamos Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello says. "Of course, factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it's possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost."
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