POWERING DOWN

摘要

Nuclear reactors can generate heat in all kinds of ways. And that's the problem. They're efficient, and the electricity they produce is cheap, and very profitable. On the other hand, they breed a sort of waste whose hazards have no historical precedent. So, of course, there are those who are for nuclear power and those against. Arguments on both sides can range from the economic to the political, moral, and ecological. But put all arguments aside, and one thing remains: More than 100 nuclear reactors in the United States produce about 20 percent of the country's electricity. So no one can afford to turn them off any time soon. Companies like Framatome ANP and Westinghouse, which design and service nuclear plants, continually tweak hardware, including fuel assemblies, to make reactors more efficient. And before they put their new ideas into; service, the companies submit them to high-power tests. Columbia University's Heat Transfer Research Facility has been the only place to go for key safety testing. Since the days of the Atoms for Peace program during the Eisenhower years, the lab has tested generations of nuclear reactor fuel assemblies.