Energy Alternatives

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

A gen 4 Portable Fission Reactor (developed for the Navy by Westinghouse at Walt's Mills PA, by the way) fits in the length of a standard semi trailer. I saw one on it's way to the Navy a couple of years ago. Those power plants range in size from 10 to 50 megawatts. My father saw a "first?" generation version at Ft Greely, Alaska in 1962. It came in on a single tractor trailer. They went from burning 50,000 barrels (55gal each) of fuel oil a year, to ZERO barrels (for both power generation and heat). The unit is very portable. The technology has been around for a very long time (developed from shipboard units). The containment structure needed for fuel rod storage and to protect the users from any release of radiation in the event of an accident, would prevent the movement of these devices once they were put into use.

I think that these units would be stored in caches and that those caches would become "focal points" in game. Imagine what would be needed to construct the containment building (unless the planners constructed it underground at the cache site). You would be required to plan your movement based on the availability of this resource for power and stored units would be able to move to new locations as needed. The fuel rods could be an issue. I'm guessing that the planners could have figured out how to put those rods into cryo storage just like the players.

I think the greatest obstacle is sourcing the enriched uranium. Now that is not to say that the Project might not have built and stashed units like this in areas around the country. The intention being to release these to the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency under FEMA in the 3-5 year plan.