What is the definition of a nuclear battery? A new MIT startup wants to empower remote locations with their nano-nuclear battery at a price competitive with today’s dirty diesel generators.
Out of MIT comes another interesting nuclear startup, UPower Technologies. The company was founded by three nuclear engineers and is targeting off the grid heat and electricity markets, aiming to replace dirty and expensive diesel generators which is today’s solution for this type of remote locations.
The reactor is a container-sized, plug-and-play nuclear thermal battery producing 7MW thermal or 2MW electrical energy for 12 years without refueling.
Not too much is known about the core technologies except that it is fuel agnostic; it can use thorium, uranium or recycled fuel, and does so in a solid form they call nano-nuclear. In this way it can reduce the half-life of existing waste, and it’s spent fuel can be reprocessed and reused in another reactor up to 7 times.
UPower has won funding from MIT Clean Energy Prize and the Boston accelerator program MassChallenge, and is now in the hands of the famous Y Combinator for further funding.