Credit score: Joule (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2024.06.014
A group of engineers from Tsinghua College, working at China’s high-temperature reactor with a pebble-bed module (HTR-PM), claims that the reactor has handed a important cooling check. Of their research, published in Joulethe group turned off exterior energy to the reactor to check its cooling talents over two days.
One of many main drawbacks of utilizing nuclear energy to generate electrical energy is the concern of a meltdown, presumably exposing populations to radiation. Scientists have been working to develop designs for nuclear reactors that don’t soften down if their coolant provide is interrupted. On this new research, the group in China examined the HTR-PM design, by which the fuel rods utilized in reactions are much less dense than these at present used.
They make use of extra graphite and fewer uranium, and the uranium is encased. The design leads to slower reactions and the flexibility to maintain greater temperatures for longer durations of time. It additionally disperses warmth over a bigger space, which implies cooling may be completed passively, utilizing both convection, conduction or each. That implies that no external power supply is required for cooling.
The design would have prevented the meltdown that occurred on the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan in 2011. In that accident, a tsunami brought about a power outage that made it not possible to pump the water used to maintain the reactors cool, which allowed them to overheat.
The brand new nuclear plant in China has been beneath building and testing since 2016—it has two reactors, every able to producing 105 MW of energy. It started operations final yr. The analysis group sought to show that the plant is incapable of melting down by revving each reactors as much as full energy after which turning off all exterior energy—this instantly stopped water flowing to and from the generators which might be used to generate energy.
The researchers then monitored the plant in case of a meltdown, which didn’t happen; as a substitute, steady temperatures had been reached inside 36 hours.
Extra data:
Zuoyi Zhang et al, Loss-of-cooling assessments to confirm inherent security characteristic on the planet’s first HTR-PM nuclear energy plant, Joule (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2024.06.014
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