Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Actually, the tech I was referring to has not yet been applied to any reactor that I've heard of. What I remember off the top of my head is the insertion of fuel into small spheres that move through the circulation system. Fuel is recycled back into the spheres and goes through 2-3 times, until the level of energy left is minimal. There was a Scientific American article about it within the last 2 years I believe...
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That's the "pebble bed" reactor concept. It dates back to 1943. China has been working on them, I don't know how far they've gotten in building one. The major problem with the concept is political. A properly designed, safe pebble bed can only be built to a certain size, which means you have to build a string of them, instead of one honkin' big plant. The design however, is a fail-safe design, it cannot generate enough heat during a coolant fail to cause a meltdown. That 's why the size limit, make it too big and you lose the fail-safe feature...