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posted by janrinok on Wednesday May 08 2019, @11:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-could-go-wrong? dept.

NPR:

Nuclear power plants are so big, complicated and expensive to build that more are shutting down than opening up. An Oregon company, NuScale Power, wants to change that trend by building nuclear plants that are the opposite of existing ones: smaller, simpler and cheaper.

The company says its plant design using small modular reactors also could work well with renewable energy, such as wind and solar, by providing backup electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.
...
NuScale's design doesn't depend on pumps or generators that could fail in an emergency because it uses passive cooling. The reactors would be in a containment vessel, underground and in a huge pool of water that can absorb heat.

Presumably the biggest risk of a NuScale reactor failing is radioactive gophers?


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  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday May 09 2019, @06:52PM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday May 09 2019, @06:52PM (#841474)

    Thank you for the additional information.

    personally I consider ~5 atmospheres of pressure to be a lot. With the biggest issue being that the coolant would flash instantly into steam with a volume 1000 times greater than it's liquid phase, hence the large containment buildings that have to built around LWTR and other water cooled reactors. MSR reactors can operate at ambient pressure and any leaks would be plugged by the solidified fuel salts, allowing them to be made much smaller.

    By "cleaner" I was referring to the amount and half-life of the resulting waste products. My understanding is that the waste may be more radioactive in the short term there is less of it and it would not require storage for as long due to the shorter half-life of the resulting elements.

    I wasn't able to find any information about the Thallium 233 isotope you mentioned. Did you mean Thallium 206? With a half-life of 3 minutes and a beta decay it doesn't seem like it would be that much of an issue, but you might now something about it I don't.

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