Just as I’ve written in the past, let me answer your two immediate questions right now. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, I’m serious. Under our current overly prohibitive regulatory network, the government (eww…big government) talks-the-talk regarding energy independence and a green future yet will not walk-the-walk. In this article, I propose why letting private homeowners buy, install and maintain a nuclear reactor on their property is a good idea.
Currently, many states encourage homeowners to install solar panels, as well as the federal government. It is a similar story with wind power, with most states being pretty permissive of windmills, as is the federal government (evidenced by their helpful introductory page). Most states even allow the homeowner to sell the excess electricity that is generated back to the utility company if they wish to do so (or hoard their excess for themselves via battery storage, no judgement here!). Truthfully, I’m not against wind or solar at all, under the right conditions they are fantastic options for electricity; if I owned a ton of land in New Mexico or Arizona I would totally have solar panels, ditto for windmills in tornado alley or the Midwest. However, neither are sufficient sources of round-the-clock power.
In comes nuclear power; a clean energy source with a far better safety record than most people will give credit for. While I normally don’t like relying on averages as they are easily skewed by outliers (as anyone who went to math class clearly knows), the federal government has parsed the data to show that the average home uses 900 kilowatt hours (0.9 megawatt hours) per month. Given the highest category is roughly 1300 kilowatt hours (1.3 megawatt hours) per month, we’ll use this as our measuring stick; after all, what are Americans going to do, start being considerate of others? The smallest commercial nuclear reactor can produce over 500 megawatts per hour at a near constant pace. Converting the units over, that means that a backyard nuclear reactor for private residential use needs to only generate tenths of a percent of what a commercial reactor needs to be capable of. In fact, progress is already being made on this front, with the approval of a smaller reactor that still far exceeds what a private residence would need. Thus, a reactor merely 2.6% of the size of the NuScale reactor would suffice for private home use. This means a cylinder that is only 60 centimeters tall and 13 centimeters in diameter would be enough to generate what an electricity-guzzling American home would need (assuming this home had constant electricity use, which is laughably ridiculous). For those who prefer Freedom Units, this is less than two feet tall by less than six inches in diameter; this hypothetical reactor would be smaller than some desktop lamps. Given this size, it would be easy to dig a hole deep underground in the backyard at the end of the reactor’s service life (in decades, so it’s the next buyers, or their buyer’s problem) and bury the spent reactor in concrete (I’m serious, this is how the waste is disposed of). Given that we already allow homeowners to dig wells on their property, and every Home Depot in America sells concrete mix, there is no practical reason we cannot start implementing this idea.
The only true practical hurdle would be a financial one. Admittedly, the price of a two-foot by six-inch reactor will incur an upfront price tag. Assuming the alarmist reports are true (which I doubt but let’s say that they are for the sake of conversation), a cost of $89 per megawatt still only equates to a private home energy bill of $115.70, using their highest estimated cost ($89 per megawatt times 1.3 megawatts). Most of these price increases mostly revolve around the price of the building materials, so the actual monthly cost of operating a home-based nuclear reactor small enough to power your home is clearly going to be much lower than $115.70. Smart meter and throttling technology can be put into place in order to curb unnecessary electricity usage as well, thus driving the price down even further. For reference, this inflated number of $115.70 is still lower than the average U.S electric bill which assumes a usage of 0.9 megawatts instead of the 1.3 megawatts I used for the calculation. Given that solar panels boost the value of a home, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that being truly independent of the local electrical grid would drive up the value of your home.
This idea of democratizing nuclear reactors for private home use would go a long way towards stemming the tide of climate change. If we wait on the federal government to act, it will certainly be too late. Part of the reason the Paris Climate Agreement was so monumental was that it entailed many of the world’s leading economic powers to acknowledge that this is a major impending crisis that needs to be dealt with immediately. After the celebrations subsided, little action has been taken towards lowering our carbon emissions. No matter which flavor of radicalization you prefer, we simply can no longer wait around for drunk Uncle Sam to act. This is why we need government regulators to step out of the way and permit homeowners to operate a small nuclear reactor on their property; it’s the best shot we have at a sustainable future. It is also hypocritical to allow private homeowners to have solar panels and windmills but not nuclear reactors; either commit to a clean energy future or don’t. Sitting on the fence helps no one.
“OH, it totally figures that Dan would weave his Libertarian ideology into another one of his fucking articles!” a savvy reader of mine will inevitably point out. For those that absolutely insist on having some government oversight involved (barf!), we can have the two-tiered system that I proposed in the Opt-Out Government article. To summarize, we can have the default option, in which government lackeys visit your nuclear reactor and give the Yay or Nay (though Kiefer Sutherland had the right idea in Metal Gear Solid 5), or the homeowner can install the reactor without the regulation with the understanding that the fire department will not respond to any emergencies at that address, and the homeowner assumes possible liability in case their neighbors start getting radiation sickness. That way, we can still respect individual liberty without totally gutting the regulatory agencies. Happy now? Who am I kidding? You’re never happy! So why do I bother? Why do I hear the sound of pitchforks being sharpened?
It’s time we let the citizens take power-literally-into their own hands.
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