The mPower design, a 125-MWe concept under development by Babcock & Wilcox, also features passive cooling, but “our whole principle of safety is defense-in-depth,” said Jeffrey Halfinger, B&W’s vice president of technology development. He spoke at the conference and was interviewed after his presentation.
The concept of defense-in-depth, he said, is to have “multiple stages” of cooling and backup cooling systems before the reactor resorts to passive cooling, which is the emergency measure. Under the emergency situation, Halfinger said, operators can replenish the water tank that feeds the passive cooling system, which can keep running “for weeks and weeks and weeks.”

  • This is interesting, but no detailed information from mPower.

There are “few accident scenarios” in Westinghouse Electric’s unnamed SMR reactor concept, said Michael Anness, manager for advanced reactors at the company. “There are no active safety systems in the [Westinghouse] small, modular reactor,” he said at the conference.
The smaller design has fewer penetrations of its reactor and containment vessels, fewer valves and fewer pumps, Anness said.

  • It is very informative of cause.

The design of the company’s SMR reflects some additional passive safety features incorporated into its 1,100-MW AP1000 unit, which is under final review by the NRC for design certification, Anness said. More safety, it turns out, does not mean more pipes and backup pumps and valves, he said.

 

From: http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/6126955

William Freebairn (william_freebairn@platts.com)

Yanmei Xie (yanmei_xie@platts.com)

 

Tagged with:  

Leave a Reply