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10/21/2003 Entry: "Nuclear power..."

I'm glad to see that people are again willing to take a look at nuclear power. The industry has matured a great deal in the last 50 years and the design of the plants show it. When the plants were first created, all this was new technology, and it cost it. These newer designs show a lot of improvement.

Take a look at this mini-nuke plan. The reactor is safe because it has insufficent mass to heat up on its own. It requires a reflector to concentrate the neutrons back into the core to keep the chain-reaction going. Without the reflector, the chain-reaction stops. Nice.

The reactor also uses liquid sodium for cooling/heat-transfer. Back in the early 90s, I worked on a project for the next generation nuke plant for the DOD/DOE. One of the two competing designs was called the HTRF, high-temperature reactor facility. The designed also used liquid sodium as a moderator and coolant. The way the plant operated, if the sodium ever leaked out, the reactor would be unable to maintain the chain reaction and shuts down. I don't know if the Toshiba design described above has the same characteristics, but it probably would.

Via slashdot