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Two steps forward for U.K. advanced nuclear
This week, two significant announcements have emerged from the United Kingdom’s advanced reactor sector.
On June 14, Rolls-Royce, the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory, and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency announced that they had signed two trilateral memorandums of cooperation to collaborate on “advanced modular reactor (AMR) technology, specifically high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR), and the coated particle fuel these reactors will use.”
Separately, on June 16, Bellevue, Wash.–based TerraPower announced that its Natrium reactor design has been formally submitted for U.K. regulatory review. The company also announced the formation of a new subsidiary, TerraPower UK Ltd.
Joseph Litrel, Donna Post. Guillen (INL), Michael McKellar (Univ of Idaho)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 714-728
Microreactors can be used to provide electrical power up to 10 MWe for emergency situations, remote areas, or military applications. Combined cycles comprised of an air Brayton topping cycle and an Organic Rankine bottoming cycle were evaluated in HYSYS using different working fluids in the bottoming cycle and in different ambient environments. The results indicate that a bottoming ORC can increase the thermal efficiency of the air Brayton cycle from 35.8 % up to 40.2 %. Exergy analysis was also performed on the combined cycle along with a simple validation of HYSYS on the bottoming cycle. The exergy analysis shows that of available work, most is lost at the reactor or turned into work at the topping cycle. A rudimentary capital cost estimate shows that the addition of a bottoming cycle is not prohibitively expensive.