More Nukes: AK Village OK’s Mini Nuke Reactor

Hmmmmm…Alaska’s got oil, and now they’ve got nukes. (Can you say major energy player boys and girls? And just who’s running place that place anyway?) Well, it looks like the generous folks at Toshiba, who offered a snazzy miniature nuclear reactor to an Alaskan village called Galena back in 2003, have finally been taken up on their offer. Construction of the 4S reactor ("Super-Safe, Small, and Simple"--Wow! Genius marketing, right?!) will make it the tiniest reactor ever built, about the size of a large spruce tree. With an underground reactor core encased in concrete housing, this baby’s as safe from attack or theft as “a missle in its silo," per Gizmodo’s pull quote from Toshiba reps. Ha! Surely the nuke reactor (if approved by the nuclear council) will spout less immediate ickiness into the atmosphere than the town’s current diesel generator, but is it really a good solution? And with Alaska in general, I guess the pressing question is nukes or wildlife…nukes or wildlife...Do we dig or do we split atoms...aaahhh, decisions decisions. But which spells payday and which doomsday? Via ::Gizmodo Via ::Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends [by MO]