Safety
The proposed nuclear system’s greatest safety advantages are its small size and simplicity. One of the ways new nuclear plant designs have increased safety over the last 20 years is by simplifying the overall design and operation. As stated in the Vision, if nuclear energy is to compete with fossil fuels, then we should assume that tens of thousands of reactors or more will be built. We should also assume that unplanned transients will inevitably occur. The impact of such a transient, however, would be much smaller and much easier to handle and maintain because of the small size of the system. Below are a number of ways the system will be incredibly safe:
Voyager 1 is powered by thermoelectrics and has traveled billions of miles for over four decades without any maintenance.
A simpler design decreases the chances of component failures which further reduces the chances of an accident. Since the proposed nuclear system uses air as its heat sink, many components used in today’s water reactors such as pumps, valves and piping are unnecessary. The basic moving parts of the proposed system would be control rods to regulate the temperature and chain reaction of the reactor, and fans/blowers to push air to remove excess heat.
Nuclear grade graphite and steel piping have been reliably manufactured for decades, and thermoelectric modules are solid-state devices that have no moving parts and can last a very long time. For instance, Voyager 1 is powered by thermoelectrics and has traveled billions of miles for over four decades without any maintenance.
The non-moving components of the system such as the graphite moderator, thermoelectric modules and air flow piping can be designed to reliably and safely handle large fluctuations in temperatures from the fuel. The strengths and melting points for the materials would be strong enough and sufficiently higher than what they would experience during normal operation or in a transient situation.
In addition to its simplicity, the volume of nuclear fuel in the system and the thermal power from the reactor are a thousand times less than existing plants. As a result, the amount of radiation that would be produced during normal operation would also be magnitudes less and significantly easier to contain.