U.S. Military Eyes Tiny Nuclear Reactors for Deployed Troops

[rangerrebew]

U.S. Military Eyes Tiny Nuclear Reactors for Deployed Troops

    By Patrick Tucker
    Defense One
    January 25, 2019


Getting fuel to remote operating bases is a big problem for the U.S. military. In 2008, during the height of combat in Iraq, the Government Accountability Office estimated that more than 900,000 gallons of fuel went to bases for basic power needs like lighting and refrigeration (on top of the 6.7 million gallons the military burned that year in jets and ground vehicles.) The U.S. military’s Strategic Capabilities Office has put out a request for information about small nuclear reactors that could deploy to the sorts of hillside forward bases U.S. troops set up in places like Afghanistan.

According to the request for “Project Dilithium,” the reactor should fit on a truck and a C-17 aircraft and generate from one to 10 megawatts of electric power for three years without refueling. Soldiers have to be able to stand it up in 72 hours and take it down in a week. It’s got to be meltdown-proof. The office is looking to fund three different prototype designs and will then select a winner from among them.

https://www.govexec.com/defense/2019/01/us-military-eyes-tiny-nuclear-reactors-deployed-troops/154437/

[massadvj]

If we had this in Iraq then Isis would have had nuclear power.  Just saying.

[Elderberry]

The board concluded that the best approach for these super small reactors was radioisotope thermoelectric generators. They work simply: as the reactor fuel — either plutonium-238 or strontium-90 — decays, it slowly but surely releasing lots of heat, which is converted by thermocouples into electricity.

If one of these was attacked with an IED, how far would the radioactive cloud go?

[montanajoe]

Hmmm...why do the words Agent Orange keep going through my mind...

I'm sure this would never pose a long term risk to the troops...

[Smokin Joe]

If one of these was attacked with an IED, how far would the radioactive cloud go?

It'd be a nasty dirty bomb, with a long half life.