Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. ‘Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,’ said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. ‘They will cost approximately $25 million each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.’

Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. ‘It’s leapfrog technology,’ he said.

This is a truly worthwhile technology. I haven’t worked inside nuclear power generation since Hector was a pup; but, the problems of safety and cost never had a damned thing to do with tech in the first place. Aside from questions decided by politicians – like not choosing to build breeder reactors in the USA back in the day – the technology never has been a problem. France has proved that better than most.

The crew at Los Alamos know more about this sort of tech than just about anyone on the street. Good to see some of these taxpayer-funded programs making it into something other than death and destruction.