![]() This report focuses on the role of nuclear power in advanced economies and the factors that put nuclear power at risk of future decline. However, in advanced economies, nuclear power has begun to fade, with plants closing and little new investment made, just when the world requires more low-carbon electricity. Over the past 50 years, the use of nuclear power has reduced CO2 emissions by over 60 gigatonnes – nearly two years’ worth of global energy-related emissions. Together, they provide three-quarters of global low-carbon generation. For the latter, NASA would send five Kilopower reactors.Nuclear power and hydropower form the backbone of low-carbon electricity generation. The 10-kilowatt version will be used for either deep space missions or missions to Mars's surface. The current plan, according to McClure, is to use the 1-kilowatt version of Kilopower for deep space missions or missions to other planets. ![]() On the Moon, Kilopower could be deployed to help search for resources in permanently shadowed craters.” “Kilopower opens up the full surface of Mars, including the northern latitudes where water may reside. “We want a power source that can handle extreme environments,” Mason said in a NASA news release. The Kilopower reactor has been specifically designed with these obstacles in mind. On the Moon, a cold lunar night persists for 14 days. On Mars, the Sun’s power varies throughout the seasons and dust storms can last for months at a time. So if we lose cooling and are just radiating a little bit of heat energy away, the reactor will drop in power to match that.” Ready for SpaceĪny reactor used for Moon and Mars missions would have to be quite durable and capable of handling rough elements. “The way we’ve got the physics designed, the reactor will basically put out as much heat as is being asked of it. “Melting fuel would be difficult if not impossible for the applications that we’re doing," said McClure. Multiple Kilopower reactors could be used simultaneously, and it can even control itself, meaning there's less of a chance for a nuclear meltdown. While it's true that traditional reactors would solve the energy issue, McClure points out that the smaller size of the prototype makes it easier to predict and operate. One may be wondering, then, why NASA would choose to build a smaller reactor that generates less electricity than its larger counterparts. ![]() Lee Mason, NASA’s principal technologist for power and energy storage, told Reuters that a human mission would likely require 40 to 50 KW to power everything the astronauts needed. At NASA, they’re used to tens to hundreds of watts, so to have a kilowatt or 10 kilowatts is a lot of electricity.” “Realize, though, that this is a lot of energy for NASA. In your average household, you use about 5 KW on average a day, at any given time,” Pat McClure, Kilopower project lead at LANL, told Popular Science. Ten KW per day is more than enough for the typical household here on Earth, but NASA is going to need a bit more if the end goal is to sustain people on Mars and beyond. ![]() The Kilopower prototype reactor is roughly the size of a coffee can, and it uses uranium to provide between 1 kilowatt and 10 kilowatts of electrical power for up to 10 years. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have been hard at work on Kilopower, a compact nuclear energy reactor that could operate on the Red Planet and beyond. For humanity to have any hope of long-term colonization on Mars, we'll have to develop power systems capable of meeting our off-world energy needs.
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