I Want a Nuclear Powered iPhone

Michael Purdie

The following is a guest post by NEI's Michael Purdie.

The Wall Street Journal's Jon Keegan recently published a very interesting infographic on how long your iPhone would keep operating depending on the ultimate power source. Keegan analyzed the energy density of certain fossil fuels, batteries, and even body fat (which was pretty cool) and analyzed how long an iPhone could run based on its theoretical battery volume.

Keegan looked at three scenarios: regular use, LTE browsing, and stand by time for an iPhone 6s. Under those conditions, Keegan estimated that the lithium ion battery in your iPhone should last 15 hours from regular use, 10 hours from LTE browsing, and 10 days on standby. The results ranged from an hour from a lead acid battery (similar to that of the one in your car) to 10 days by diesel fuel from regular use. In case you were curious, body fat would power your phone for 9 days.

Can't fight the power.

Interestingly, there was one fuel source that didn't make Keegan's cut: uranium. For those of you who are wondering, uranium oxide, the fuel that powers nuclear reactors, is so energy dense that its fission process could power your iPhone for almost 12,000,000 days of regular use! That’s over 32,000 years!

If for some reason you left your phone on standby mode, you would not need to charge your phone for 515,000 years.

I have many questions for Apple CEO Tim Cook. Would my warranty last that long? Would I be able to keep my original data plan? How is this possible?

Keegan analyzed electrical energy density in Watt hours per liter (Wh/l). This is the measurement of electrical energy per hour in a certain volume (in this case, a liter). In Keegan’s analysis, he calculated the densest fuel to be diesel fuel at 10,700 (Wh/l). The uranium fuel in nuclear reactors has 13.2 billion Wh/l.

This is simply the energy released when nuclear fuel is in an operating reactor. Less than five percent of nuclear fuel is from the Uranium-235 isotope. Also, not all of the U-235 isotopes fission. If we assumed that the battery was powered by U-235 and had 100% fission, we’d be talking about trillions of WH/l. If you'd like to check my work, click here.

The larger point is that when it comes to energy density, nuclear energy is the superior technology. Here's another real world example. A typical 1,000-megawatt reactor can be sited on a 1.3 square mile parcel of land, a size roughly equivalent to New York's Central Park. This includes all of the plant's operations, including security and onsite storage of used nuclear fuel.

To generate the same amount of electricity, a solar facility would require 45-75 square miles, between 1.3 and two times the size of Manhattan. A wind farm able to generate as much electricity would be larger still, between 260-360 square miles, or between 7 and 11 times the size of Manhattan.

The ability of nuclear energy to deliver so much carbon-free electricity in such a small package makes it so valuable to our energy future.

EDITOR'S NOTE: After taking a second look at our calculations, we discovered that we had underestimated the potency of uranium by a factor of 1,000. Thanks to The Nuclear Advocate on Facebook for pointing out the error.

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog