New US Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor

[mk378]

Graphite-moderated designs have been long out of favor in the West due to numerous incidents of fire in the graphite. At operating temperature, the graphite must be strictly kept away from air. Maybe the molten salt will be a more persistent blanket than inert gas. In any sort of incident it is likely the gas will leak out.

 

[Astro14]

Graphite-moderated designs have been long out of favor in the West due to numerous incidents of fire in the graphite. At operating temperature, the graphite must be strictly kept away from air. Maybe the molten salt will be a more persistent blanket than inert gas. In any sort of incident it is likely the gas will leak out.

This design isn't graphite moderated.

Chernobyl was.

I don't see a problem with this design, at least as far as the fire potential with high temperatures.

 

[oil pan 4]

Water isn’t used inside the reactor, it’s a salt coolant that circulates through the core.

But you still need water!

You run the reactor without water, at duel/shutdown, but you need water and lots of it, to create, cool, and condense the steam for the turbine to create power. That same water takes the heat from the reactor to keep it within temperature limits.

So, yeah, waterless reactor.

But not waterless power generation or operation.

The part thats been known to blow up because it uses water, has no water.

 

[someonesomewhere]

It amazes me that, for all the technological advancements humanity has made in the last 75ish years, nuclear power is still just a complex system used to generate steam.

Every traditional power plant that uses fuel (coal, gas, oil, nuclear) is essentially that, just a steam generator.

 

[OVERKILL]

Every traditional power plant that uses fuel (coal, gas, oil, nuclear) is essentially that, just a steam generator.

Rankine Cycle plants are certainly the most common thermal plants, though gas turbines are also very popular and they are just basically a jet engine coupled to a generator. Of course a CCGT also produces steam to run yet another generator, so it adds Rankine to GT, lol.

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Yes. It's east TN. Remember this is "Low-Power demonstration reactor" so timetable is obviously flexible. BTW, the first Thorium reactor was also built in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge TN has a long and storied history in the US with regards to nuclear.

“Old experience” is sometimes a detriment. People & policies get complacent. New eyes and minds are good to get in the mix. Remember how NASA made the Saturn Vs in the 1960s and now they admit they have no idea how to duplicate its performance? Sad.