I'm with Mongo, all pie is good hot, cold, or room temperature. Especially pumpkin, that shit is delicious cold with or without a glob of whipped cream on top.
These clowns. Its just a small scale version of their bigger PWR (pressurized water reactor)...just like all the major reactors in the US etc. Its not using the safer encapsulated fuel.
I never did see the real benefit of using a scaled down version of a PWR (or especially a BWR). Almost everything in industry (computing aside) really hits a stride when it's scaled up. I can't see having dozens or hundreds of small 200mW power stations in a country when you could just have 1/4 the number of large dual unit plants to get the same power output. The only real benefit I could see is transmission losses could be reduced because you could place these small units closer to the areas they're serving. Either way, after seeing something like TISO encapsulated fuel - it's clearly the future if there are no fatal flaws that we've not yet heard about.
Google Fort St Vrain in Colorado. HTGR built about 50 years ago. Nothing is new under the sun. PS, nothing especially bad about encapsulated fuel, just be wary about graphite moderators. Graphite was used in the first reactor pile but also was the source of the fire at Cherynoble.
I have not read about this specifically but the question as to why it's stable is spot on. One possibility is the fuel nuggets since they are a mix keep the nuclear materials far enough apart to not runaway. So it needs an intervention to make alot of heat. This intervention may be something like a controlled dosing of neutrons or something else. Neutrons can pass through solids and not get stuck since they have no charge but they can drive a reaction. They may well be using some other method to speed up the reaction but it is likely on an atomic scale. And of course they can turn down or off the intervention when they want the reaction to minimize.
Saw an interesting youtubes last night about several new proposed room temp and/or low pressure superconductors. We're headed towards some more stuff previously sci-fi even if these don't prove out, the path is narrowing.
Also, google Windscale in the UK. A graphite moderated HTGR that also caught fire. Not specifically a pebble bed though. As a Nookular Engineer I'm not opposed to any development just that we must keep our vision in focus. There is no reward without risk...no free lunch...etc
The USN neukulR fleet has been a paragon of safety development spurred on by the losses in the 60s. TANSTAAFL is often the result of an initial FUBAR or SNAFU before success.
If they just submitted their NRC paperwork, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Nuclear projects rarely come together. At this scale, a packaged system may see the light of day.
