Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

From the Guardian

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. ‘Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,’ said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. ‘They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.’

 Click here for the full article

Quality Improvement – Six Steps to Improving Quality

Step 2 - What is the Objective - To select a problem and set a target for improvement

What key activities should be undertaken?

Collect data on all aspects of the theme (all problems)
Clarify the problems from various viewpoints
Select a problem collected in the previous step
Identify what the customer wants (their requirements)
Write a clear statement of the problem
Utilize data to help establish a target
Present the problem statement to management or your project sponsor

Tools You Can Use:

Checklists
Graphs
Pareto Charts
Control Charts
Histograms
Problem Statement Matrix

Note – Step Three will be coming in the next few days

Weekend Video - Kind of Creepy!