Future of Emergency Power: Small, Mobile Nuclear Power Plants (from Army)

[KB8VUL]

Lets say for a moment that there was a situation that was caused by generation and not distribution, or an issue that was distribution at a main feed level.  So we are talking about 100K homes.  Average home feed is 100 AMP. Services are 200 AMP but total draw is at most 100 for the sake of math here.  so 100K homes times 100 AMP is 10 Megawatt.
Now this doesn't take into account industry, commercial buildings, city lighting like street lights and traffic lights.. Just 100K homes.  So we are talking a 10 Megawatt generator and a transformer to step up or down the generated voltage to the distribution voltage at the point of failure.  A ten megawatt generator would need to be moved in several pieces because of the weight of it as a single piece,  overhead cranes would need to be constructed at the site to assemble the generator.  The transformer would also need to be trucked in to an area that may or may not be easily accessible for voltage changes.  Then the plant would need to be assembled including the containment facility.  Now the other issue is all power plants this size require grid power at their location to operate.  So another set of diesel generators would need to be trucked in to spin the plant up so it could produce power.  We are talking a convoy of equipment and men to get something of this nature to occur.  And the time needed to make it all happen would be measured in weeks not days. 
It's not like just rolling up with one semi trailer and hooking up some wires. 
We as home users look at a 15K generator as having the ability to run our whole house, with a bit to spare. 
A 15K generator at an industrial building would be barely enough to get the lights on in a large warehouse.
Mind you ALL of this is still connected to the grid beyond the point of failure.  So we need MORE men and trucks to go disconnect all the industrial customers so that the 10 megawatt generator can even be spun up without being burnt up.

The largest single transportable generator on a standard trailer would be about 750Kwatt.  So even if they were to bring in multiple heads and run them in parallel, it would be a monumental undertaking. 

[W6RMK]

Lets say for a moment that there was a situation that was caused by generation and not distribution, or an issue that was distribution at a main feed level.  So we are talking about 100K homes.  Average home feed is 100 AMP. Services are 200 AMP but total draw is at most 100 for the sake of math here.  so 100K homes times 100 AMP is 10 Megawatt.

You left out the voltage in your power computation..

100 A * 240V = 24kW /household...   

100k households is then 2400 MW.

There is an assumption, though, that not everyone draws full power at the same time. Typical practice in my neighborhood is that a 50-100kVA transformer feeds 6-8 houses, or about 10 kW/house.  The local powerco engineer comments that we're a bit undersized. In the summer, there is definite light blink when the neighbor's AC starts up.

[KB1NXE]

Or 1 Flux Capacitor....

[KE4DRN]

Hi,

not the flux capacitor but a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor.

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/EB00/121GMF.oap

73 james

[KF7CG]

The trenchless system is nice for fiber-optic and maybe up to medium voltage lines, but contructing a buried 300 KV line can be a little different. Can be done, just like the switch to DC power distribution of the high power portions of the power grid.

KF7CG

[KO3D]

Just the perfect thing to add to the Wacker's magnetic door sign and amber light. Maybe ARRL can have an online course on maintaining your own nuclear reactor!

[K1DA]

Looks like a grab for grant money.