Increasing the economic competitiveness of nuclear energy is vital to its future. The US Peach Bottom unit 3 is currently licensed to operate at 3.9 GWth, which is a testament to ability of BWR technology to allow large uprates and improve nuclear energy economics. The ABWR still remains to be the only GenⅢ+ plant with operation experience. In addition, the operating ABWRs before Fukushima in Japan were built using modular construction in very short times (about 50 months). The optimization study in BWR design space arrived at a fuel assembly with 85 kW/L, named BWR-HD. The assembly is 16×16 with 7 mm fuel rod outer diameter, with 2.4 meters in length. This work outlines the design of a 5000 MWth reactor, equivalent to 26% uprated ABWR at nominal ABWR pressure, core total flow rate and number of assemblies (872). The new design operates with similar fuel cycle cost as an ABWR while generating 1000 MWth more power. A 500 MWth SMR design with BWR-HD assembly is also discussed. This design has an advantage of far larger operating map compared to any of the proposed PWR SMRs. The reactor pressure vessel thickness can also be design at about half of the PWR SMRs with comparable overall size.
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