Here's something pretty cool I saw in New scientist. Here's a 4 year old link, but the idea seems to have resurfaced recently. Basically create a self contained, tamper proof reactor that will fit on a large pallette. Plug in a generator and presto - power on tap. They're talking about low maintenance units that can be transported around the world safely, are cheap enough for developing countries to buy and come with enough fuel sealed in for 30 years of operation.

I'm a fan of nuclear power. Which doesn't automatically make me an "enemy" of green power, before anybody gets on their high horse. Renewables are great when you have the raw material - i.e abundant sunlight, a nice handy coastline etc. And I'm sure in time the technology will get better, to the point where it's actually practical to power a country with a few acres of wind farm / solar panels. Right now though, in the short to medium term I don't see a better alternative than nuclear power so if we can make it cheap and safe that has to be good, right?

The reactor designs they're talking about for these things are not Chernobyl - that happend over 20 years ago and we have made some progress since then! The modern designs (so I read) create less - and less dangerous - waste than their predecessors and incoporate many safety features to help prevent the china syndrome.

Conceptually I like it. Whether it'll ever get off the ground politically is a whole other question - do we want to be handing over a large chunk of nuclear material to people who we don't trust? I can see it being used to provide power for remote installations of "friendly" nations, but I can't really see the US selling Iran a nuclear-power-station-in-a-box!

Try these links for a taster of things to come:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSTAR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S