Hyperion type mini reactors can be “clipped onto” existing coal fired power plants. Low capital cost. Existing grids/staff/other infrastructure. No need for Nuclear Plant Operators…none available in Australia.

LTC (Low Temperature Conversion) plants can be added to process brown coal from existing coal mines into Diesile, Kerosine and petro chem products. Clean carbon residue from LTC process can be burt in existing power plant furnaces during economic life run down of same. (Followed at a later date by hydogenation of clean carbon residue to produce petro chems.)

Organic agricultural wastes (wheat straw, sugar cane trash, feed lot trash, prunings, weeds), bush fire fuel load reductions, city garbage, and commercial forestry trash such as prunings, bark, off cuts, sawdust and shavings can also be processed in these LTC plants.

#1 I agree with your statement, small towns could really benefit from this advancement.

Anyway, interesting article.

There is a town in Alaska, for example, named Galena. It is interested in replacing its current “off-grid” power source, which consists of aging diesel generators that burn fuel brought by barge during the summer months and stored in very large tanks left over from when the US Air Force maintained an active base there.

Toshiba is working with the town to be the initial host of a 10 MWe nuclear power system that is designed to run for at least 30 years without any new fuel. That kind of development would enable off-grid towns to be a completely different and cleaner kind of place.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights