Small-scale Nuclear Power Under Development

摘要

A team at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is developing nuclear reactors that are cost-effective and a better-fit for developing nations. Widely known as grid-appropriate reactors, these nuclear reactors are smaller in size, generating typically between 250 MW and 500 MW of electricity, making them far more affordable and practical for nations that cannot accommodate current light-water reactors that can generate up to 1,600 MW of electricity. This is in part because these nations have smaller power grids and less well-developed technical infrastructures. "These reactors hold the promise of economic development by introducing a clean and affordable source of electricity to a developing nation. These reactors are also projected to have construction times just over half the time that is required to build a large nuclear power plant," said ORNL's Dan Ingersoll, Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) project director for grid-appropriate reactors.