image: diagram of molten common salt reactor Organizational too regulatory features are sometimes part of the causal background of of ...
image: diagram of molten common salt reactor
Organizational too regulatory features are sometimes part of the causal background of of import engineering scientific discipline failures. This is specially truthful inwards the history of nuclear mightiness generation. The hope of peaceful uses of atomic liberate energy was enormously attractive at the cease of World War II. In abstract terms the possibility of generating useable mightiness from atomic reactions was quite simple. What was needed was a controllable fission reaction inwards which the estrus produced past times fission could survive captured to run a steam-powered electrical generator.
The technical challenges presented past times harnessing nuclear fission inwards a mightiness constitute were large. Fissionable fabric needed to survive produced every bit useable fuel sources. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 command organization needed to survive designed to hold the marker of fission at a desired level. And, most critically, a organization for removing estrus from the fissioning fuel needed to survive designed too then that the reactor amount would non overheat too melt down, releasing liberate energy too radioactive materials into the environment.
Early reactor designs took unlike approaches to the heat-removal problem. Liquid metallic reactors used a metallic similar sodium every bit the fluid that would run through the amount removing estrus to a estrus sink for dispersal; too H2O reactors used pressurized H2O to serve that function. The sodium breeder reactor blueprint appeared to survive a feasible approach, only incidents similar the Fermi 1 disaster nigh Detroit cast doubtfulness on the wisdom of using this approach. The reactor blueprint that emerged every bit the dominant choice inwards civilian mightiness production was the low-cal H2O reactor. But low-cal H2O reactors presented their ain technological challenges, including most especially the conduct chances of a massive steam explosion inwards the trial of a mightiness time out to the cooling plant. In social club to obviate this conduct chances reactor designs involved multiple levels of redundancy to ensure that no such mightiness time out would occur. And much of the cost of structure of a modern low-cal H2O mightiness constitute is dedicated to these systems -- containment vessels, redundant mightiness supplies, etc. In spite of these blueprint efforts, however, low-cal H2O reactors at Three Mile Island too Fukushima did inwards fact melt downward nether odd circumstances -- alongside specially devastating results inwards Fukushima. The nuclear mightiness manufacture inwards the U.S. essentially died every bit a number of world fears of the possibility of meltdown of nuclear reactors nigh populated areas -- fears that were validated past times several large nuclear disasters.
What is interesting virtually this story is that at that spot was an alternative reactor blueprint that was developed past times U.S. nuclear scientists too engineers inwards the 1950s that involved a significantly unlike solution to the work of harnessing the estrus of a nuclear reaction too that posed a dramatically lower marker of conduct chances of meltdown too radioactive release. This is the molten common salt reactor, get-go developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory facility inwards the 1950s. This was developed every bit part of the loopy thought of creating an atomic-powered aircraft that could stay aloft for months. This reactor blueprint operates at atmospheric pressure, too the technological challenges of maintaining a molten common salt cooling organization are readily solved. The fact that at that spot is no H2O involved inwards the cooling organization way that the greatest danger inwards a nuclear mightiness plant, a vehement steam explosion, is eliminated entirely. Molten common salt volition non plough to steam, too the conduct chances of a steam-based explosion is removed completely. Chinese nuclear liberate energy researchers are currently developing a side past times side generation of molten common salt reactors, too at that spot is a likelihood that they volition survive successful inwards designing a reactor organization that is both to a greater extent than efficient inwards terms of cost too dramatically safer inwards terms of low-probability, high-cost accidents (link). This engineering scientific discipline also has the wages of making much to a greater extent than efficient exercise of the nuclear fuel, leaving a dramatically smaller amount of nuclear waste matter to dispose of.
So why did the U.S. nuclear manufacture abandon the molten-salt reactor design? This seems to survive a province of affairs of lock-in past times an manufacture too a regulatory system. Once the manufacture settled on the low-cal H2O reactor design, it was implemented past times the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inwards terms of the regulations too licensing requirements for novel nuclear reactors. It was after extremely hard for a utility fellowship or a mortal liberate energy firm to invest inwards the interrogation too evolution too structure costs that would survive associated alongside a radical modify of design. There is currently an endeavor past times an American fellowship to railroad train a new-generation molten common salt reactor, too the procedure is inhibited past times the cognition that it volition get got a minimum of 10 years to attain certification too licensing for a possible commercial constitute to survive based on the novel blueprint (link).
This story illustrates the possibility that a procedure of engineering scientific discipline evolution may become locked into a item approach that embodies substantial world risk, too it may survive all only impossible to after adopt a unlike approach. In roughly other context Thomas Hughes refers to this every bit technological momentum, too it is clear that at that spot are commercial, institutional, too regulatory reasons for this "stickiness" of a major engineering scientific discipline i time it is designed too adopted. In the representative of nuclear mightiness the inertia associated alongside low-cal H2O reactors is specially unfortunate, given that it blocked other solutions that were both safer too to a greater extent than economical.
(Here is a valuable review of security issues inwards the nuclear mightiness industry; link. Also relevant is Robin Cowan, "Nuclear Power Reactors: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Study inwards Technological Lock-in"; link -- thanks, Özgür, for the reference.)
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