A little company called Hyperion Power Generation, working out of Los Alamos, has developed what's being called a nuclear battery. A portable nuclear generator the size of a hot tub, the device could provide juice -- enough to satisfy 25,000 homes for five years -- to communities that can't or don't want to connect to the grid.
Hyperion says that because they don't have moving parts or require human supervision, the devices are more of a "battery" than a "reactor." And since lithium-ion battery design has been so thoroughly perfected, we see no problem with a couple thousand of these hitting the market in five years.
Nuke to the Future [Santa Fe Reporter]
