Factbites
 Where results make sense
About us   |   Why use us?   |   Reviews   |   PR   |   Contact us  

Topic: Pebble bed reactor


Related Topics

In the News (Wed 3 Dec 08)

  
  Pebble bed reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In contrast, a pebble bed reactor is gas cooled, sometimes at low pressures.
Each pebble, within the vessel, is a 60 mm hollow sphere of pyrolytic graphite.
The pebbles are constructed of ceramics that are known not to melt at the maximum equilibrium temperature of the reactor.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor   (4879 words)

  
 Pebble bed reactor -   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
However, if the gas from the primary coolant can be made radioactive by the neutrons in the reactor, it may be instead brought to a heat exchanger, where it heats another gas, or steam.
Several critics of pebble bed reactors have claimed that encasing the fuel in potentially flammable graphite poses a hazard.
Like most nuclear reactors, pebble bed reactors produce radioactive waste which must either be safely stored for many human generations, reprocessed (more difficult after this method of reaction) or disposed of by a method yet to be devised.
www.psychcentral.com /psypsych/Pebble_bed_reactor   (4747 words)

  
 FAS Public Interest Report
The pebble bed modular reactor, in a slightly longer time frame, derives its proliferation- resistance from the fact that the spent fuel would be high burn-up material in thousands of tiny carbon-coated spheres making it a comparatively unattractive source from which to recover weapons-usable materials.
Employ breeder or particle accelerator-driven reactors that, to the extent possible, co- locate sensitive processes (such as reprocessing) with the reactor, do not separate the plutonium from other actinides, and otherwise seek to ensure that weapons-usable materials are never isolated.
This is assuming a 45% efficiency of the reactor and a capacity factor of 0.8.
www.fas.org /faspir/2001/v54n5/nuclear.htm   (6914 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Reactors   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
The pebbles, being spheres, can be made to flow like a liquid through the reactor, their graphite surfaces acting like a high-temperature lubricant.
The reactor core used 317,500 spherical elements where, in the equilibrium cycle, 55% of the elements were fuel and the remainder where graphite moderators [3].
Illustrated by the red and blue pebbled granules, the inner reactor core portion consists of two zones and is 3.7 meters in diameter and 9.0 meters high.
www.pharmaciaretirees.com /pebble_bed_reactors.htm   (4191 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
Reactor vendors who put forward new designs anticipate that their designs will meet commercial market needs including an affordable, competitive construction cost and the usually low operating costs of commercial nuclear reactors.
Other major makers of PWR reactors, including Framatome ANP and the Russian Atomstroyexport, have not yet sold their reactors in the U.S. schematic diagram of a PWR can be found at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/pwr.html.
Cooling in a reactor refers to the process and medium by which heat is transferred from the reactor core to the steam supply cycle of the nuclear power plant.
www.cogeneration.net /Pebble_Bed_Modular_Reactor.htm   (9884 words)

  
 THE PEBBLE BED MODULAR REACTOR (PBMR) - NIRS
Unlike light water reactors that use water and steam, the PBMR design would use pressurized helium heated in the reactor core to drive a series of turbine compressors that attach to an electrical generator.
The slow circulation of fuel through the reactor provides for a small core size that minimizes excess core reactivity and lowers power density, all of which is credited to safety.
Following the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident and graphite fire in Ukraine, the West German government revealed that on May 4, the 300-megawatt PBMR at Hamm released radiation after one of its spherical fuel pebbles became lodged in the pipe feeding the fuel to the reactor.
www.nirs.org /factsheets/pbmrfactsheet.htm   (1069 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Reactor Technology
The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is a new type of high temperature helium gas-cooled nuclear reactor, which builds and advances on world-wide nuclear operators' experience of older reactor designs.
The most remarkable feature of these reactors is that they use attributes inherent in and natural to the processes of nuclear energy generation to enhance safety features.
The reactor is loaded with over 440 000 spheres - three quarters of which are fuel spheres and one quarter graphite spheres - at any one time.
www.eskom.co.za /nuclear_energy/pebble_bed/pebble_bed.html   (2013 words)

  
 What's Wrong With the Modular Pebble Bed Reactor?
The pebble bed reactor is being touted as nearly "accident proof." It is being hailed as the savior of the nuclear industry.
There are approximately 370,000 pebbles in a pebble bed reactor.
The pebbles are less radioactive than conventional fuel assemblies and more pebbles are required to produce the needed heat inside the reactor.
www.tmia.com /industry/pebbles.html   (709 words)

  
 China plans 'pebble bed' nuclear reactor: report. 08/02/2005. ABC News Online
The plant would be the first radically new reactor design for decades, putting China at the forefront in nuclear energy research that offers a "meltdown-proof" alternative to conventional nuclear power stations.
"Pebble bed" reactors are fueled by thousands of small graphite balls with minute uranium cores which provide the fuel for the nuclear reaction.
"Pebble bed" technology was pioneered in Germany, which shut down its last prototype reactor in 1989, while a South African project remains in doubt, the newspaper said.
www.abc.net.au /news/newsitems/200502/s1298669.htm   (319 words)

  
 China to pioneer ‘pebble bed’ N-reactor   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
Advocates of “modular” pebble bed reactors argue they offer the hope of cheap, safe and easily expandable nuclear power stations a potent appeal for China, which is struggling to meet huge growth in energy demand while avoiding environmental disaster.
Pebble bed reactors are small, which suits remote and rural areas and makes them easy to expand.
Fort St. Vrain was not a pebble bed reactor, nor was it modular.
www.freerepublic.com /focus/f-news/1338478/posts   (1334 words)

  
 Wired 12.09: Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom
A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts.
A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete.
Instead of the white-hot fuel rods that fire the heart of a conventional reactor, HTR-10 is powered by 27,000 billiards-sized graphite balls packed with tiny flecks of uranium.
www.wired.com /wired/archive/12.09/china.html   (1110 words)

  
 IEER: The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
A small German pilot reactor operated for 21 years and operated at 70 per capacity factor, according to the promoters of the PBMR (http://www.pbmr.co.za/2_about_the_pbmr/2_8background_to_the_pbmr.htm).
If the reactor is built without a secondary containment, as has been proposed, this could result in a large release of radioactivity.
If it is any consolation, the amount of radioactivity in the reactor core per unit of power produced is lower than with other reactor designs, because the fuel pebbles flow continually out of the reactor and are put into storage while new fuel pebbles are fed at the top.
www.ieer.org /comments/energy/chny-pbr.html   (1746 words)

  
 Thorium
The 300 MWe THTR reactor in Germany was developed from the AVR and operated between 1983 and 1989 with 674,000 pebbles, over half containing Th/HEU fuel (the rest graphite moderator and some neutron absorbers).
Kakrapar-1 was the first reactor in the world to use thorium, rather than depleted uranium, to achieve power flattening across the reactor core.
Molten salt reactors - This is an advanced breeder concept, in which the fuel is circulated in molten salt, without any external coolant in the core.
www.uic.com.au /nip67.htm   (2634 words)

  
 South Africa
Eskom also is in the process of developing and testing a smaller nuclear reactor.
The PBMR combines helium coolant, a graphite moderator, and ceramic fuel pellets, which allow the reactor to operate at higher temperatures, increasing the amount of energy it can convert to electricity.
If the reactor trial is successful, Eskom has announced that it will build up to ten PBMR plants locally, to provide power to coastal regions which are distant from its core coal-fired generating facilities.
www.eia.doe.gov /emeu/cabs/safr_nuke.html   (719 words)

  
 Modular Pebble Bed Reactor
Develop a sufficient technical and economic basis for this type of reactor plant to determine whether it can compete with natural gas and still meet safety, proliferation resistance and waste disposal concerns.
Our work is meant to turn that belief around with substantive analysis.
If successful, propose building a reactor research facility to license by test, explore different fuel cycles, process heat applications, and advanced control system design, helium gas turbines and other components.
web.mit.edu /pebble-bed   (93 words)

  
 Dry Fluids Gallery: Sandia pebble-bed reactor simulations   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
This image shows a cutaway of full physical simulation of a proposed pebble-bed nuclear reactor design, with 440,000 particles in a cylinder 58 particle diameters across.
There are two types of particles: the light-colored particles correspond to fuel pebbles, while the dark-colored particles correspond to control pebbles, analogous to control rods in a conventional nuclear reactor.
This question is extremely important to the reactor design, and would be very difficult and costly to answer via experiment.
www-math.mit.edu /dryfluids/gallery/reactor.htm   (192 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Modular Reactor(PBMR) Introduction [1/2]
The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor programme (PBMR) within Eskom not only enjoys the benefits of a history of intensive state subsidy for nuclear power, as part of the apartheid governments weapons programme, but also of continuing disproportionate funding allocations, a lack of coherent energy policy and questionable application of law.
The extravagant claims of possible national benefits in foreign exchange and employment are based on a desk-top input-output analysis of a base case scenario, in the absence of meaningful socio-economic analysis.
The same applies to advances in reactor safety and efficiency over previous reactors, even if all the claims are borne out.
www.ratical.org /radiation/PBMRintro1.html   (2158 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Modular Reactor(PBMR) Introduction [2/2]
Estimates for the International Panel on Climate Change suggest that within the European Continent, 1000 reactors would need to be operational in 2100, six times the current level.
"PBMR is an acronym for Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
This refers to a new kind of nuclear reactor which is still at a conceptual stage of development.
www.ratical.org /radiation/PBMRintro2.html   (1784 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Modular Reactor
PBMR's are nuclear reactors that are unable to melt down.
The FAQ has a lot of good info on why these power plants should be the direction the US should go and North Africa is going.
I like to think that some of the technology we've developed over the last 40 years could possibly fix problems the early models had (60's early!) Small nuclear reactors that power towns and areas around the towns.
digg.com /science/Pebble_Bed_Modular_Reactor   (314 words)

  
 NRC: Design Certification Pre-Application Review - PBMR
SECY-01-0070, "Plan for Pre-Application Activities on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor," dated April 25, 2001.
During 2001 and early 2002, the staff conducted a series of public meetings with Exelon and interested stakeholders to obtain information on topics related to the staff’s pre-application review.
Modular HTGR Safety Analysis and Licensing Challenges document provides a list of challenges for licensing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
www.nrc.gov /reactors/new-licensing/design-cert/pbmr.html   (534 words)

  
 Modular Pebble Bed Reactor
Modular Pebble Bed Reactor High Temperature Gas Reactor, Andrew C. Kadak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November, 2002
Modularity Approach to the Modular Pebble Bed Reactor, Marc V. Berte, Andrew C. Kadak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 23, 2003
MIT Modular Pebble Bed Reactor: A Summary of Research Activities and Accomplishments, Andrew C. Kadak, Ronald Ballinger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
web.mit.edu /pebble-bed/presentation.html   (205 words)

  
 Pebble Bed Reactor - Atari Forums
The fuel is put into baseball sized pebbles made of silicon carbide.
The fuel cannot get really close together and melt into a super hot mass like a standard reactor.
It seems like just the kind of central power system that might be aboard a space craft.
www.ataricommunity.com /forums/showthread.php?p=7477733   (277 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)

Factbites
  About us   |   Why use us?   |   Reviews   |   Press   |   Contact us  
Copyright © 2005-2007 www.factbites.com Usage implies agreement with terms.