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There isn’t much need to extract isotopes if you have an actual working reactor, is there? Just use that as-is to cause whatever damage.

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From a strictly red team threat analysis perspective, if you have an extremely safe working reactor that can't be made to melt down, no, the reactor can't be used to hurt much that is in the same location as the reactor. If you are able to get the isotopes out and start spreading them around or making a dirty bomb type thing (where the explosion just serves the purpose of throwing the isotopes around), that could be pretty catastrophic.

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have you never visited a rural neighborhood? or an affluent neighborhood?

there are still many neighborhoods where people leave their doors unlocked because it is actually that safe. not every location is rife with criminal activity, and many are well protected.

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Serious question, do you actually think that if you distribute millions of small nuclear reactors to homeowners geographically spread out around all of North America, 0.000% of them will be dangerously mentally ill, criminally reckless or inclined to terrorist like activity? Based on the frequency and number of mass shooter type incidents, (or like, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians) this would be a very naive view.

It doesn't require a criminally minded 3rd party coming onto someone's "safe" property to do something horrible with a sawzall and/or oxy-acetylene cutting torch.

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have you never heard of tamper-proof containers? mess with it, it’s useless and you go to jail for a long time?

Plus, they’re ubiquitous, you don’t know who has one, max damage is minimal even worst case — go fish!

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That's a very optimistic view of humanity that I can't say I share. If you give a sufficiently motivated person enough isolation and time, they can cut into just about anything. And possibly deal with cleaning up the results of any internal tamperproof countermeasures. In a world that contains people like the Las Vegas mass shooter or those who conducted the 2015 attacks in Paris, handing out isotopes to the ordinary person seems like a recipe for disaster.

We live in a world where multiple people are killed every year by tipping vending machines over onto themselves and you propose to make nuclear reactors a mass market consumer good that goes in everyone's garage?

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We have microwave ovens. They’re pretty safe. Imagine something as safe as that. We can do it.

But I can’t disagree that it’s more exciting to imagine terror dreams.

by myrmidon1 hours ago|

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First: microwaves are only safe if you don't mess with them, a bunch of people get killed by tinkering with their high-voltage transformers (at least 35 US deaths from one specific usecase alone in the last decade, see https://www.woodturner.org/Woodturner/Resources/Safety-Mater...).

A big potential concern with small reactors are highly toxic radionuclides; those can be much more dangerous (with LD50 far under 1mg/kg) than "ordinary toxins" like bleach or even nasty stuff like methyl isocyanate. That means expensive disposal and protection measures.

All of this is a non-concern though because there is no realistic path for nuclear reactors to compete with PV+batteries, ever. With cells already <$100/kWh and the panels being cheaper than glass windows, we will never be able to build, maintain and dispose of nuclear based reactors tech at a competitive price point, especially not with the insane current battery demand (automotive) driving technical optimisation and price competition.

by yehoshuapw12 hours ago|

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While that is true, if there is something worthwhile enough in a far and safe location - it won't stay that way

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It’s everywhere. It’s in the shed in your backyard. Nobody knows it’s there. Lots of people have them. It’s an appliance.

The worst thing an evildoer can do is blow up your own house and the few around it. and no one does that because you go to jail forever.

The worst thing you can do is let it melt down, which means it quietly shuts itself down.

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> The worst thing an evildoer can do is blow up your own house and the few around it.

No, they can take the isotopes out and dump it into your local water supply. Or if they're suicidal and the isotopes have been encapsulated in some sort of tamperproof system, grid the whole thing down to granulated powder using less than $20,000 of power tools (disregarding their own health and the entire nearby area, of course) and then dump it into the local water supply.

by fragmede11 hours ago|

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If someone evil has access to the water supply, is radioactive material the worst they could do? that'll, what, give some people cancer which is really bad but it'll take a while to get them. If people wanted to be shitheads, they could already dump arsenic or LSD into the water supply, or any number of others things. that are already available to them right now! Have you personally tested your taps chlorine or flouride or lead levels recently?

by TheOtherHobbes12 hours ago|

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You're seriously proposing that a country with regular mass-shootings should give everyone a device that can cause a radioactive meltdown or a small explosion?

by fragmede12 hours ago|

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We already let people have cars and those things are crazy dangerous! No one should be allowed anything, ever, until we bubble wrap everything in the world to be perfectly safe!

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Well, we already have strict background checks, licensing and regulations for a scenario such as if a person wants start a home based business manufacturing and storing C4, Semtex or similar at their rural property. If the idea is to start handing out nuclear reactors for peoples' houses, the possible damage that could be done is far greater. No matter how well packaged it is or designed to be consumer friendly.

by 6 hours ago|

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by leonidasrup10 hours ago|

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft

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There were some crazy ideas for nuclear powered cars, but there are hard physical limits how small you can make a nuclear reactor.

1. Smaller the nuclear reactor is more neutron leakage you get. Each neutron which escapes a nuclear reactor is a neutron which can not be used to sustain the chain reactor. To compensate this you have to put more fissionable U-235 isotope into the reactor and as a result you need higher enriched nuclear fuel. A nuclear reactor in nuclear submarine can have the size of a dining table but it's running on nuclear fuel enriched to a weapon grade enrichment.

2. Even a small nuclear reactor with few kW thermal output needs a thick and heavy radiation shielding. This is not problem for power plant, or nuclear powered submarine, or nuclear powered ship. But the shielding requirement were problem for nuclear powered airplanes or trains.

In case of the mobile ML-1 experimental nuclear reactor, built as part of the US Army Nuclear Power Program, extensive shielding was omitted in favor of a personnel exclusion zone of 500 feet (150 m) while in operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML-1

Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1), the first artificial nuclear reactor, didn't have shielding. But, to keep the dose of ionizing radiation for the staff within reasonable limits, it operated only for very short time periods and the total output of CP-1 was only few Watts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

by hdgvhicv12 hours ago|