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from the safe-like-ms-windows-and-real-estate-doing-fission-together dept.
Wyoming has selected billionaire Bill Gates's company TerraPower LLC and Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway's owned power company PacifiCorp to build the nation's first Natrium reactor. As reported by Reuters:
TerraPower, founded by Gates about 15 years ago, and power company PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), said the exact site of the Natrium reactor demonstration plant is expected to be announced by the end of the year. Small advanced reactors, which run on different fuels than traditional reactors, are regarded by some as a critical carbon-free technology than can supplement intermittent power sources like wind and solar as states strive to cut emissions that cause climate change.
"This is our fastest and clearest course to becoming carbon negative," Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon said. "Nuclear power is clearly a part of my all-of-the-above strategy for energy" in Wyoming, the country's top coal-producing state.
The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system's power output to 500 MW during peak power demand. TerraPower said last year that the plants would cost about $1 billion.
[...] Chris Levesque, TerraPower's president and CEO, said the demonstration plant would take about seven years to build.
"We need this kind of clean energy on the grid in the 2030s," he told reporters.
Also seen over at ZeroHedge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @01:32PM (1 child)
There are 2 types of water moderated reactor: Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) and Boiling Water Reactor (BWR). Both are old designs. Most nuclear reactors are PWR. In a PWR, water is not allowed to boil on the reactor side. The heat from the reactor water is transferred via a heat exchanger (in other words it is not in direct contact) to an isolated secondary system which has water that is allowed to boil and turns a turbine to generate electricity. In a BWR, the water is allowed to boil and turn a turbine directly to generate electricity; there is no heat exchanger and no isolated secondary system. BWRs are the second most common type of reactor and many new plants have been built as BWRs (renewed interest, mostly overseas). Note that BWRs still operate under pressure, but far less than a PWR.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @10:42PM
Is there any inherent advantage to the boiling water type, other than not needing to build two isolated systems? I would think the turbines would hold up better if they are isolated from the reactor water, so I wonder why the boiling type have renewed interest.