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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Reactors

Atomic Show #276 – HolosGen Claudio Filippone and Chip Martin

May 19, 2020 By Rod Adams 18 Comments

HolosGen has attacked the nuclear power plant cost and schedule challenge from the opposite direction chosen by many nuclear reactor developers. Claiming to be agnostic about the reactor specifics – as long as it produces reliable heat in a small-enough configuration – HolosGen founder Claudio Filippone decided to focus on radical improvements to the “balance […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Atomic Entrepreneurs, Gas Cooled Reactors, Podcast, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

X-300 Blazing a Different Kind of Trail in Smaller Nuclear Reactor Development

April 1, 2020 By Rod Adams 18 Comments

GEH spent about half a billion dollars designing, testing and certifying the ESBWR. Despite that investment, the 1,520 MWe Enhanced, Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) design documents are just gathering dust with no active projects in sight. GEH is a joint venture between US-based GE, a $95 billion annual revenue conglomerate and Hitachi, a Japanese […]

Filed Under: Boiling Water, Smaller reactors

Oklo has filed first combined license application (COLA) with the NRC since 2009

March 18, 2020 By Rod Adams 15 Comments

Oklo, Inc. announced yesterday that its combined license application (COLA) to build and operate an Aurora at INL was undergoing acceptance review at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Key project specifics Oklo’s Aurora is a 1.5 MWe liquid metal fast reactor with heat pipes to move fission heat out of the reactor core and into the […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Liquid Metal Cooled Reactors, New Nuclear, Smaller reactors

What exploded in Russia on Aug 8? My estimate is a (chemical) booster rocket for a nuclear powered cruise missile.

August 23, 2019 By Rod Adams 37 Comments

A cruise missile with a nuclear reactor heated turbofan engine and a liquid fueled booster rocket is the most likely description of the Russian developmental weapons system that exploded while being tested on August 8. It’s likely that the explosion occurred during maintenance or fueling operations on a barge floating off shore and not during […]

Filed Under: Gas Cooled Reactors, International nuclear, Nuclear Aircraft, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

Project Pele – Part II. Enabling technologies

April 20, 2019 By Rod Adams 26 Comments

Building mobile nuclear power plants will be a challenge, but successfully meeting the challenges could alter the future trajectory of the energy and fuels supply industry. That is one of the largest and most consequential sectors of our modern, mobile, industrialized economy. There are no guarantees, but compared to many research and development projects, Project […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Gas Cooled Reactors, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

ML-1 Mobile Power System: Reactor in a Box

February 1, 2019 By Rod Adams 11 Comments

This is a modest update of an article first published in November 1996. DOD’s recent issuance of an RFI for mobile, modest power output atomic power systems shows that the challenges that were clearly described in 1963 have not been addressed – yet. Now is a good time to start addressing them. The ML-1 experimental […]

Filed Under: Army Nuclear Program, Atomic Insights Nov 1995, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Technical History Stories

Turning nuclear into a fuel dominated business

October 28, 2018 By Rod Adams 66 Comments

Under our current energy paradigm, nuclear power has the reputation of needing enormous up-front capital investments. Once those investments have been made and the plants are complete, the payoff is that they have low recurring fuel costs. Just the opposite is said of simple cycle natural gas fired combustion turbines. They require a small capital […]

Filed Under: Adams Engines, Advanced Atomic Technologies, Business of atomic energy, Economics, Gas Cooled Reactors, Graphite Moderated Reactors, Pebble Bed Reactors, Smaller reactors

Fission heated gas turbines address MIT Future of Nuclear challenges. Easier, straighter, less costly path

September 20, 2018 By Rod Adams 57 Comments

Addressing Recommendations of MIT Future of Nuclear Energy In a Carbon Constrained World The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a world renowned institution that has produced thousands of highly educated engineers and scientists. It is generously supported by foundations, corporations and governments. In 2003, the MIT Energy Initiative, began publishing a series of reports […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Gas Cooled Reactors, Graphite Moderated Reactors, New Nuclear, Pebble Bed Reactors, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

NuScale announces a major step in the NRC’s review of its passively safe SMR

January 10, 2018 By Rod Adams 74 Comments

NuScale, a leader in the increasingly competitive field of advanced nuclear reactor design, has announced that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviewers issued a document that formally agrees that their design does not require any electrical power to achieve safe shutdown. It’s difficult to explain the importance of that regulatory position. People with experience […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, New Nuclear, Nuclear regulations, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

Urenco, Bruce Power Sign MOU To Develop U-Battery for Canada

January 8, 2018 By Rod Adams 5 Comments

Urenco, Bruce Power and AMEC NSS Limited recently announced that they had signed an MOU to cooperate in the design, licensing and development of Urenco’s U-Battery micro nuclear system for the Canadian electricity and heat market. The U-Battery contains a 10 MWth nuclear heat source that can be configured to produce either 4 MWe plus […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Gas Cooled Reactors, International nuclear, Reactors, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

Who will be ThorCon’s EPC contractor?

September 27, 2017 By Guest Author 18 Comments

ThorConIsle cooling pond, fission power module, secondary heat exchanger cell, steam generator cell, turbine hall, switchgear hall.

By Jack Devanney Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors have led recent nuclear plant projects into disasters. Deca-billion dollar cost overruns. Schedules doubling. Some projects being cancelled after squandering billions of dollars. Giant corporations facing bankruptcy. This raises the obvious question: if Westinghouse can’t build a standard nuclear power plant, how in the world will a start up like ThorCon […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Business of atomic energy, Guest Columns, Liquid Fuel Reactors, New Nuclear, Thorium Reactors

Can Gas Turbines Using Nuclear Fuel Change The Energy Game?

August 31, 2017 By Rod Adams 51 Comments

It’s time to change energy game by adapting the well-proven, flexible and reliable combined cycle to be able to use nuclear fuel. That will match the best available heat conversion system with a low cost, emission-free heat source.

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Army Nuclear Program, Economics, Gas Cooled Reactors, New Nuclear, Small Nuclear Power Plants

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