Atomic Gas Turbines: Applying Related Inventions
“ML-1 Mobile Power System: Reactor in a Box” November 1995 AEI), for example, achieved a thermal efficiency of less than 10 percent, largely because the reactor could only produce gas temperatures of approximately 750 C, far below the 1100 C available for combustion turbines of the same vintage.
Advanced ceramic coatings now available have been used in reactors with the demonstrated ability to produce continuous gas temperatures of 1000 C or more. There are huge existing inventories of nuclear fuel materials that can be purchased for the equivalent of less than 50 cents per million BTU, or less than 1/5th of the cost of natural gas.
Fortunately for the competitive prospects of a tiny company like Adams Atomic Engines, established companies in the power equipment industry seem unaware of the opportunity provided by matching gas turbine engines with nuclear reactors.
