The Egg, an at Home Nuclear Reactor | Hacker News Reader

The Egg, an at Home Nuclear Reactor

enron.com

90 pointsveidelis49 comments

"THE INFORMATION ON THE WEBSITE IS FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED PARODY, REPRESENTS PERFORMANCE ART, AND IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY."[1]

[1] https://enron.com/pages/terms-of-use

Only? That's disappointing. This is the problem with companies these days using purportedly "Open Source" licenses which are anything but. It's misrepresentative at best and switch-and-bait at worst. :-/

Some guys bought the trademark and are selling merchandise and making memes for a while now. Their new Enron tiktok is gold.

There are actual micronuclear reactors though, which is why I was initially hopeful lol:

https://westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/evinci-micror...

Other names to google: NuScale VOYGR™ Micro (77MW scalable), Oklo Aurora (1.5MW), Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) (5MW thermal, 1.5MW electric), Rolls-Royce SMR (470 MW), HolosGen HolosQuad (3-13 MW), X-energy Xe-100 (80 MW)

This seems closer to an RTG [1].

Legality aside, could one design a desktop RTG with a practical power output? Say with an open-cycle boiling-water design, to keep things simple.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...

I’d go with closed cycle Stirling engines. Even better efficiency than open water boiling.

The general rtg use cases care less about efficiency than long term reliability though so that’s why they use thermocouples. But it would be reasonably trivial to use a Stirling engine instead (unless you’re going to extreme environments where mechanical parts no longer work well)

Don't RTGs generate power constantly? That would make them impossible to use for a casual customer.

Such a convenient space heater wouldn't ya know?

Possibly. I'm not sure what you would do with it in the summer though. Even Arctic and Antarctica have pretty big seasonal temperature variations.

1) Sell the power back to the power company (granted, at the wholesale price)

2) Use the heat given off to generate more power

I'm not sure it is: from that Wiki page, it sounds like RTGs can't quickly ramp up/down power generation or turn off, which that Westinghouse page says can be done.

They make heat constantly. You’re free to convert that heat to electricity or not at your leisure though. It’s no different to choosing not to draw power from a solar panel in the sun. Not a problem.

You probably could, but aside from the black helicopters showing up at your door, the fuel wouldn't exactly be cheap to purchase.

I was skeptical at first, but given that it’s such a well known energy company, I’m sure this will be a great product!

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/enron-egg-price-nuclear-s...

“This product is gonna revolutionize three critical industries. The power industry, the independence industry, and the freedom industry. This product is gonna revolutionize all three,” Enron CEO Connor Gaydos claimed in a video presentation announcing the egg.

Gaydos is also the co-founder of the satirical “Birds Aren't Real” movement, which asserts that all real birds existing in the U.S. had been forcibly made extinct and were replaced by the government with surveillance drones that look like birds.

The Birds Aren't Real guy securing the Enron domain and social handles is chef's kiss.

My only wish is that Hacker News allowed satire by clearly marking content with '[satire]' at the end.

Without humor the only option is to end up in controversial squabbles.

Shame <marquee> is deprecated. That's the best use I've ever seen.

<marquee>The World's Leading Company</marquee>

It’s like Axact - The World’s Leading IT Company

Already pre-ordered a dozen

Baker's?

https://books.google.se/books/about/Nuclear_Power_and_Energy...

The Egg may be fake, but the merch is real. [1]

[1] https://enron.com/collections/shop

The Enron Egg is a compact nuclear reactor that uses Uranium-Zirconium Hydride (U-ZrH) fuel rods to generate heat through nuclear fission. This heat is transferred via a 3D-printed Inconel heat exchanger, powering a turbine to generate electricity. A closed-loop cooling system ensures safe operation without environmental contamination.

The new Enron and the Enron Egg is all parody. I really wish it weren't!

https://www.ibtimes.com/enrons-satirical-comeback-meet-enron...

Crazy part is that he picked up the Enron trademark for $250!

This is honestly the real "hacker news". $250 for what was likely millions of dollars of visual design and global household name recognition

Amazing. And indeed, surely a multi-million dollar commission (in ‘90s dollars!) - the logo is from the same guy who did the logos for IBM and NeXT (among many others).

Paul Rand

The Enron logo has a couple of similarities to the Next computers logo.

https://www.paulrand.design/work/Enron.html

Not like it had a lot of practical value. Sure, it cost a lot to design -- but all that value went down the drain in 2001.

> a compact nuclear reactor that uses Uranium-Zirconium Hydride (U-ZrH) fuel rods to generate heat through nuclear fission

Would this really be more toxic than common refrigerants? Or e.g. hydrazine?

Before it has reached criticality for the first time, its contents are less toxic than hydrazine.

After criticality, the contents are more toxic than hydrazine. Nuclear reactors are safe because so much engineering and procedural effort goes into keeping the fuel and its fission products contained. The fission products include extremely toxic materials. Strontium-90, one of the more common medium-lifetime fission products, has an acute gram-for-gram lethality comparable to the nerve gas sarin. The fast-decaying fission products like strontium-89 are even worse, though by their very nature they don't persist for long in discarded fuel.

Are you sure this is not a joke?

Aren't jokes supposed to be funny?

I really thought it’s real. I should really ask more questions. It will be cool product one day. Power companies will never let something like this come out.

118$ for a sweatshirt. Guess those rights were expensive.

I have family in Houston involved in O&G. $40 for a t-shirt is reasonable to wear at the next family event.

They apparently cost $275.

Bah, useless fission, wake me when the Mr. Fusion comes out.

Not great, not terrible

Umm..... Enron??

someone bought the name and logo and has been doing little parodies

Does this even rise to the level of parody? This is just... A thing. Just kinda lying to people and then saying gotcha.

Is it a hard requirement for a parody to parody something else?

Pretty much.

I guess the implicit humor is just mocking enron as the image of a failed company who would do reckless things?

it doesn't seem very sophisticated but I'm not sure what else you'd call it.

I got that sense too, but after watching the video, I felt like it was more of an indictment of American tech culture (especially with the recent block chain, crypto, and now AI hype). As I watched the video I felt increasingly scared of the thought of home nuclear reactors made a company solely motivated by increasing profits YoY. Honestly it was more scary than funny.

Man, some people really are no fun.

Looks like the Enron crypto token/coin is not a parody.

https://cryptoslate.com/enron-is-back-now-focused-on-decentr...

But a lot other s*itcoins beat them to it. And is flooding the crypto market with "fake" Enron coins.

One of the parodies is a “hot takes” interview: https://digg.com/digg-vids/link/enron-ceo-connor-gaydos-subw...

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