State of the art nuclear reactors?

[RR]

Hi

I have a report to write title "state of the art nuclear reactors" however the content of this is up to my own interpretation.I have taken "state-of-the-art" to mean the highest level of development of a device/ technique at a particular time, so what would this mean in terms of nuclear reactors, and what does a "state-of-the-art" nuclear reactor give us, (i.e. ideal power generation is cheap, efficient, safe, accessible, environmentally friendly, morally sound, etc)

I had two ideas:

1) Development/ improvement of current reactors.
2) Development of new reactors i.e. fusion reactors. (but do these count if they are not used yet?)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Rajiv

 

[Astronuc]

The current state of the art in PWR technolgy would be the N4 plant and EPR, both built by Areva.

http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/default/tech_papers/17th_congress/3_2_03.asp

Avreva's European Pressurized-Water Reactor

and Westinghouse (BNFL) offers is AP-600 and AP-1000.

http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/C3a.asp


The next generation plants are Gen IV.

http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov/



In BWR technology, there is GE's (with Hitachi and Toshiba) ABWR.

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/product/abwr/english/products/reactor/abwr.htm

UC Berkeley's Nuclear Engineeringhttp://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/abwr/abwr.html page.

GE's Nuclear Plant and Instrumentation Page.


There is plenty more information, but these are a good start.

Also read this thread - https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=64525&page=1

Fusion Energy is still in the research phase, and there are no practical fusion plants for electrical generation at the moment.

 

[Morbius]

Hi

2) Development of new reactors i.e. fusion reactors. (but do these count if they are not used yet?)

Rajiv,

Check out:

Courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory:

http://www.anlw.anl.gov/anlw_history/reactors/ifr.html

Courtesy of PBS's Frontline:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Courtesy of the Nuclear Engineering Dept. of the
University of California at Berkeley:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/ifr/

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[RR]

Thanks for your help guys, I think there is more than enough there to get me started on the report.

Thanks again

Rajiv