"A microreactor with a truck powered a whole Japanese city": social networks are going crazy

A truck-sized microreactor provides electricity to an entire city. In social networks, they took the futurist's article at face value and are going crazy.

Social networks in Japan and Asia have been flooded with reports that a truck-sized micro reactor has been built in the land of the rising sun, which provides electricity to an entire city and does not require maintenance for 10 years.

"The Yoroi reactor (Armor) is about the size of a standard shipping container, designed so that it can be buried underground, where it can provide stable energy with zero emissions without creating risks historically associated with nuclear energy," the reports say.

They also report that Yoroi can operate for ten years without refueling and personnel. And already two reactors are working in Hokkaido, replacing diesel generators.

Users share with each other that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan intends to install 50 more Yoroi reactors throughout the country by 2030.

In fact, the intriguing news is the fruit of a futurist's imagination.

"This is a fake. There are no such reactors, and the images were made using AI," Bloomberg reporter Stephen Stapzhinsky writes in X.

He notes that posts with news about the microreactor are distributed on social networks and all the information does not correspond to reality.

"She is full of idiots and misinformation," the reporter notes.

The author of the sensation turned out to be futurist Rich Techrani, who wrote about the microreactor as a fait accompli in his blog Techrani about Technology.

As EADaily reported, the idea of spreading micro- and small nuclear reactors is being actively promoted around the world. In the USA, with the help of MMR, they plan to compete with world market leaders Russia and Japan. However, so far the only small modular reactor exists only in Russia — floating nuclear thermal power plant (NPP) "Academician Lomonosov" with a capacity of 70 MW. It supplies electricity to the Arctic Pevek.