When we think about nuclear reactors, we imagine big plants having enormous towers, generators, steam blowing out of the top. However, at the same time, we also start thinking about the risks involved with a nuclear reactor, no one can forget the unfortunate accidents like Disaster of Chernobyl. Nuclear power is simply a very complicated way of boiling water to rotate a shaft which then turns a generator to produce electricity.
Biggest dangerous in a nuclear power plant is the splitting of radioactive materials, much of the nuclear reactor is focused on avoiding any type of radioactive leakage. There are hundreds of nuclear power plant operating all over the world but disasters of Fukushima and 3 mile Islands have prompted countries like Germany and Switzerland to dismantle their reactors. Despite the efforts from Russia and China Nuclear Industry is dying, nuclear construction is on a downswing right now. Westinghouse one of the biggest name in the nuclear industry recently filed for bankruptcy. Building nuclear reactors is a costly affair but once completed they provide cheap electricity, but this is changing due to the fact that other renewable sources of energy are becoming cheaper by the day and once a reactor becomes old its maintenance cost also increases. With the reports of rising CO2 levels advancements in this industry is a must, because of its capability of producing clean energy.
But this deadly scenario is about to change with this new company called NuScale, they are planning to build modular nuclear reactors. Modular reactors provide a number of benefits over the traditional benefits. These reactors are called SMR (Small Modular Reactors), these reactors are capable of producing 300MWe as compared to 1100MWe by traditional reactors. These portable reactors are not new but primarily they were used for warfare in submarines and ships during the cold war. These SMR's are 76 feet long and 15 feet wide, it's a helical coil steam generator. Everything we need to produce steam is inside one little vessel. Containment and the reactor vessel sit underwater below ground, we can add up to 12 modules in a single pool, so it's scalable. Each module produces 60 MWe, each module is powerful enough to light up around 50000 homes. Another benefit of this SMR is that it doesn't require any additional cooling pumps or generators, a lesson learned from previous disasters. Passive safety really describes the ability to perform a safety function without power. For this design, the reactors will safely shut themselves down without any operator action or computer action, without any AC or DC power, and they'll remain cooled for an indefinite period of time, without the need to add water. When it loses power, the control rods actually fall into the reactor vessel into the core and which are held up normally by electromagnets. So it goes from 200 MW to about 10 or 11 megawatts in a second or so. This is the most important feature of this type of reactor.
As of now, NuScale is asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a different kind of zoning boundary. Traditional zoning boundaries are of 10 miles but because of the additional safety provided by these SMR's they require a much small safe zone. They are planning to build these reactors in cities, but despite additional safety, people are wary about this because often no one is able to envision in what ways a system can fail. If you'll go ask people whether they want to live near a very safe reactor, the answer would be NO for most of the time even if it is safer than a coal-powered plant. China is also developing its own SMRs. The first place that they want to deploy this is the deserted islands, in the South China Sea. Proliferation is also one of the major concern because even SMRs are not small in any meaningful sense. With these forces ahead, eyes will be on NuScale as they work to reshape the industry and roll out what they are betting on to be a smart, scalable model of nuclear power.
However, there are still open questions over nuclear waste, protecting against proliferation, and how a truly passive nuclear plant operates in real-time. But until this model is put to the test, the ultimate question for nuclear - of whether smaller really is better - remains an open one.
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