U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency Approves First Generation IV Nuclear Reactor
Construction has started on the new facility in iconic Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The last time we checked on the nation’s energy industry, the Biden-Harris administration banned drilling for gas and oil on 28 million acres of Alaska (rescinding the order signed by President Donald Trump).
However, there is better news on the nuclear energy front. This is good news given tht nuclear energy is the only rival to fossil fuels in efficiency and cost-effectiveness and is worthy of supplying power on a civilization-level.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved construction of the first fourth-generation nuclear reactor in the country.
According to Interesting Engineering, the new Hermes reactor will be the first one built in the United States in 50 years that won’t be cooled by light water. Instead, it will use a system of molten fluoride salt, and a TRISO (tri-structural isotropic particle) fuel pebble bed design will power the generator.
Molten fluoride salts have “excellent chemical stability and tremendous capacity for transferring heat,” per the report, meaning it stays cooler and dissipates heat much faster than the light water that has been used for so long in American reactors.
The fuel bed consists of hundreds of millimeter-sized particles of uranium encased in multiple layers of special ceramic, which allows each individual piece of fuel to have its own containment and pressure vessel, per Ultra Safe Nuclear. The ceramic casing is stronger and more resilient than the typical zirconium alloy, meaning it can withstand higher temperatures and neutron bombardment past the failure point of other types of fuel.
On top of that, because each individual piece of fuel is so small, in the event that one fails, the ensuing burst of radiation would be significantly lessened — and less likely to cause further damage, thanks to the coolant system.
Generation IV nuclear power utilizes a system of fuel fabrication plants and reprocessing facilities that together overcome some of the shortcomings of the previous generations of nuclear power plants.
To be classified as Generation IV, a system must meet, or at least have the ability to meet, the following criteria:
(1) it is much more fuel-efficient than current plants;
(2) it is designed in such a way that severe accidents are not possible, that is, plant failure or an external event (such as an earthquake) should not result in radioactive material release to the outside world;
[3] the fuel cycle is designed in such a way that uranium and plutonium are never separated (“diverged”) but only present in a mix and with other elements. This makes it more difficult to create nuclear weapons.
Construction is underway on the new nuclear power plant in Tennessee, in the iconic city of Oak Ridge (famous for its importance in World War Two’s Manhattan Project).
Kairos Power has begun building the Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor in Oak Ridge, the first Gen IV reactor approved for construction by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Hermes reactor utilizes a fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor design, differing from conventional light-water reactors.
“Generation IV nuclear power plant designs are revolutionary, in that they are planned to use a very different set of technologies than the reactors we use today,” Ross Peel, a professor with King’s College London’s Centre for Science and Security Studies told Newsweek.
Unfortunately, we are behind China when it comes to the construction. It launched its construction of a Generation IV reactor late last year.
The Shidaowan nuclear power plant, which features the world’s first fourth-generation reactor, started commercial operations on December 6, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), one of the project’s developers, said.
“China’s independently developed high-temperature gas-cooled reactor demonstrator commenced commercial operation,” CNNC said in a statement.
“It signifies that China has completed the world’s first commercially operational modular nuclear power plant with fourth-generation nuclear technology, marking the transition of fourth-generation nuclear technology from experiments to the commercial market.”
Interestingly, more and more countries are rethinking their ban on nuclear energy, likely in light of the realities of “green energy” as well as the improvements being made in the Generation IV systems. Switzerland, for example, has reversed its outright ban of nuclear.
The Swiss government said on Wednesday it plans to overturn a ban on building new power plants to strengthen local energy supply at a time of increased geopolitical tension.
Energy Minister Albert Roesti said the government would submit a proposal to amend nuclear legislation by the end of 2024 so it can be debated in parliament next year.
“Over the long term, new nuclear power plants are one possible way of making our supply more secure in a geopolitically uncertain time,” Roesti told a press conference.
Failure to retain the option could be seen as a betrayal by future generations, Roesti argued.
All of these are positive developments for those of us who enjoy the perks of civilization, such a light at night and heat during the winter.
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Comments
To put things in perspective, this is only a demonstration reactor and it is only the 2nd reactor approved for construction in the last 50 years!!!!
That’s how bad things have been for so long.
I’m sure the nihilist eco-terrorists will figure out ways (with the collusion of the democrat party) to kill any actual construction of these nuclear power plants … or, as per their usual, the left will strangle the new plants with enough regulations to make them take decades to build and to cost more than they are worth.
In the meantime, we should be building new coal plants out the wazoo – because coal plants are really the best for the bulk of electricity generation.
Good news, but, the Dhimmi-crats’ indefensible and irrational histrionics, hysterics and fear-mongering regarding nuclear energy have set back the U.S.’s energy security and stability by decades. It’s outrageous. The U.S. should by now have at least 60% of electricity production coming from nuclear plants.
Ideally, after the 70’s Arab oil embargo, the U.S. should’ve followed France’s lead with a massive expansion of nuclear power plants.
The new Small Modular Reactors hold great promise and make a lot of sense, given their smaller physical footprint and much less expensive capital requirements.
I’m pro NP and have worked at many … but whether you’re D or R … the Fukushima and Chernobyl incidents should elicit a degree of cautiousness.
My response to concerns based upon those two incidents that you cite is — we are talking, what, exactly? Two major incidents (I’ll leave out Three Mile Island, where no radiation was leaked into the surrounding environment), over the course of decades of nuclear power plant operation by multiple countries — that’s a stellar safety record, by any reasonable measure. How many major oil spills, tanker leaks, well blowouts, well fires, etc., have taken place, over that time? What about coal fires?
Chernobyl is a unique event that was caused solely by a flawed reactor design, combined with the distinctly lax and indifferent safety standards and protocols that were common under Soviet communism. In other words, this is not an event that would ever be replicated in a nuclear power plant run in a western democracy.
Fukishima was a freak accident that could have (and, should have) been avoided, if the operating utility had situated backup generators on higher ground, above a likely tsunami flood zone on lower ground.
So, at the end of the day, these are two accidents over decades of total operation, neither of which is going to be repeated, again.
And, it should be mentioned that the 4th generation reactor designs incorporate many passive safety features, eliminating the need for human intervention or even operating power to activate those features.
This is GREAT news. Gen IV nuclear power is our future, for almost unlimited power with no carbon emissions and no radioactive waste. Scott Adams has been pushing this for years. This is our future. I don’t care if you are Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, this is what we should be striving for.
JR doesn’t care if your a republican or democrat
That’s news to me
Even when the topic isn’t politics, you just HAVE to inject some.
You could have just said “This is our future. This is what we should be striving for.”
But you couldn’t, so you didn’t.
China uses the reactors to power their quantium supercomputers, and not for their population.
Nuclear power is the ONLY thing that can power the liberal lunatic fantasy of ‘100% EVs by 2030’ that they’ve been trying to force.
We’ve entertained the delusion of ‘sustainable green energy’ for too long and with too many trillions of dollars.
I can’t imagine any of them actually think we’ll be 100% EV in 6 years. In order for the public to transition, they need to be safe, cheap, reliable and can be used in all conditions for all purposes we currently use ICE vehicles. We’re not there and we’re not going to be there by 2030.
We will be lucky to be 20% by 2030. Everyone that really wants one has one. Growth will slow even more. 50% by 2050 MIGHT be a reasonable goal. But you cannot force folks to buy something they don’t want. And the infrastructure isn’t there. Show me a fully electric Buckees and I might think otherwise.
I said this forever that we need small nuclear reactors all over the country. I’m wondering if Harris is going to use this in the debate, that she is responsible for this happening seen as the left is so crazy about nuclear.
Rickover style nuclear reactors, about 50 megawatts. should have been installed in Hawaii, Alaska, Maine and various other places decades ago. You just need an infallible supply of water nearby.
And that’s the beauty of the Gen IV reactors. They don’t have the same water needs which means they can be built in places where water is more valuable than electricity.
The nuts at the EPA will kill the project.
A molten salt reactor is the way to go, but this type still relies on an expensive constructed fuel (ceramic-enclosed uranium), instead of literally dirt-cheap thorium (with the injection of very little raw uranium), no fancy, engineered fuel elements needed. Note the nonsense about each pebble being “its own containment and pressure vessel” and how the coolant system will prevent disasters. In a MSR LFTR, the fuel is liquid. It’s kept in circulation in which it constantly sheds its heat into the power generation system. If something goes wrong, a plug of frozen fuel is allowed to melt (and it will melt on its own if the power that keeps it frozen is cut), and the fuel flows (via gravity – no valves or pumps involved) into a containment vessel below the reactor. In this vessel, the fuel’s heat causes the molten salt carrier to expand, in turn causing the density of the fuel to fall to a point at which the reaction stops. Not only is this far safer than any other system, the entire “hot” portion of the system operates at a little over 1 atmosphere of pressure. There is no danger of a high-pressure failure in the reactor because it doesn’t operate at high pressure.
The “pebble” fuel is a scam. The money in building nuclear power plants is in the fuel. Today’s nuclear plants use expensive fuel rods, which are available from a mere handful of suppliers. Power plant operators get locked in to multi-decade contracts for the fuel. The pebble fuel, being engineered, will be no different. This is one of the main reasons why there is resistance to MSR LFTRs – the fuel isn’t in an engineered container, it’s simply a mix of elements that work together by pure chemistry and physics, no rods, no cladding, and the fuel itself is currently a waste product of rare earth mining (although it can also be found in dirt that doesn’t have rare earth elements). There are literally hundreds of thousands of tons of thorium sitting around in drums, waiting for someone to put the thorium to use. There is no money it, meaning that the power they can produce will be (almost literally) dirt cheap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfWB4CsQwyw&pp=ygUia2lyayBzb3JlbnNvbiBtb2x0ZW4gc2FsdCByZWFjdG9ycw%3D%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI&t=513s&pp=ygUia2lyayBzb3JlbnNvbiBtb2x0ZW4gc2FsdCByZWFjdG9ycw%3D%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA&pp=ygUia2lyayBzb3JlbnNvbiBtb2x0ZW4gc2FsdCByZWFjdG9ycw%3D%3D
I worked for “Westinghouse” at the Bluff Road facility here in Columbia, SC 17 years ago, we made fuel rods.
Everything you said is spot-on.
This will never be completed, Democrat lawfare and liberal courts will ensure it.
This is the best news I’ve read all year, hands down. Gen IV nuclear is a civilization-level improvement. It will have the way to unlimited, safe, clean energy for all amd it will jump-start the training of a new generation of nuclear scientists and engineers. Space applications in power and propulsion already underway will diversify and accelerate. Nuclear shipping will cut more pollution and increase capacity and speed. One successful Gen IV design could lead to others (George W Bush’s Gen IV initiative focused initially on 6 types). Unless a startup such as Tri-Alpha Energy achieves commercial fusion, there is no better energy option for humanity than Gen IV nuclear.
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