Corvallis-based NuScale Power devised a system to submerge nuclear reactors in an underground pool, dramatically limiting the potential for accidents.
Corvallis-based NuScale Power devised a system to submerge nuclear reactors in an underground pool, dramatically limiting the potential for accidents.
After the triple meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in March 2011, a swarm of new ideas about nuclear power drew attention. One of those is the brainchild of [Jose] Reyes, who came up with a scheme to make a reactor small enough so that if there is a loss of electric power, as happened at Fukushima, its tiny core will cool on its own, and quickly, the way a small cup of coffee chills faster than a big pot.
His reactor, which so far exists only in computer designs, sits inside a containment vessel that looks like a steel thermos bottle and measures 82 feet in height and 15 feet in diameter — a mini version of reactor containments, some of which are being constructed at 200 feet in height and 120 feet in diameter at United States nuclear plants.
Read more at The New York Times.
