A Look at Three Amazing Nuclear Energy Innovations
It’s an exciting time for nuclear energy in the United States. As efforts to build the foundation for a clean energy future intensify, a wave of innovation is sweeping over the entire nuclear industry.
According to the US Office of Nuclear Energy, the US can expect to see the sector — and its energy system overall — profoundly transformed in the coming decade by a host of game-changing technologies that are currently in development.
Some of the coolest and most disruptive nuclear energy innovations that are worth keeping an eye on include the following:
New classes of advanced reactors
If today’s researchers have anything to say about it, the era of legacy nuclear reactors may be drawing to a close. The large-scale power plants that defined the previous generation of nuclear energy have played a vitally important role in building America’s energy system, but nuclear experts agree that the demands of the 21st century are going to require a different breed of reactor.
In response, the US, as part of an international cooperative development effort involving 14 countries, is currently working on cutting-edge advanced reactor designs that take the capabilities of their predecessors to an entirely new level. Expected to be more flexible and versatile, safer, more efficient, and less costly than previous iterations, these “Generation IV” reactors could be making their industry debut as early as 2030. Specific designs in development include:
Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) — While typical commercial nuclear power plants rely on water as a coolant, the SFR uses liquid sodium. This means that an SFR can operate at higher temperatures and lower pressures — and thus more safely and efficiently — than current reactors. In addition, because it uses what’s known as a fast neutron spectrum, where fission can take place at higher speeds, an SFR can produce electricity by using spent or waste fuel from current reactors.
Very high-temperature reactor — Cooled by flowing gas, the very high-temperature reactor, as the name implies, is designed to operate at temperatures high enough to enable extremely efficient electricity production. This could make very high-temperature reactors an ideal replacement for the fossil fuels that many energy-intensive processes, such as hydrogen production, currently rely on.
Molten salt reactor (MSR) — Like an SFR, an MSR uses something other than water — in this case, molten fluoride or chloride salts — for the cooling process. While these molten salt coolants can flow over solid fuel during cooling (as in a conventional reactor), the fissile material can also be dissolved into the primary coolant so that the fission process directly heats the salt. This design allows an MSR to use less fuel, as well as produce shorter-lived radioactive waste.
Advanced manufacturing
It’s not only the reactor designs that are becoming more innovative and cutting-edge — the manufacturing processes used to build those reactors are likewise changing and advancing. For example, the US Department of Energy is currently supporting a project in collaboration with BWX Technologies and Oak Ridge National Laboratory that will use additive manufacturing techniques, more commonly known as 3D printing, to produce different nuclear components.
The major advantage of additive manufacturing, as all kinds of industries are discovering, is that it allows highly complex designs to be prototyped and tested much more rapidly traditional manufacturing processes allow. This can significantly reduce how long it takes, and therefore how much it costs, for the nuclear industry to take new fuels and components from concept to market.
Furthermore, with additive manufacturing, key nuclear components can be produced domestically, making the US less reliant on overseas manufacturing facilities.
Advanced fuels
Naturally, the advanced reactors that will be produced using advanced manufacturing techniques will need to be powered by advanced fuels. One of today’s biggest focus areas for nuclear fuel R&D is the development of fuels that are capable of performing more efficiently at higher temperatures.
For example, a number of companies and projects are currently exploring tristructural isotropic particle fuel, more commonly known as TRISO fuel. Described as the most robust nuclear fuel on the planet, TRISO fuel particles consist of a uranium oxicarbide kernel coated with three protective layers of carbon- and ceramic-based materials. This coating essentially acts as a containment system, making the fuel more structurally resistant to factors like neutron irradiation, corrosion, oxidation, and high temperatures.
Because of these protective layers, it is impossible for TRISO particles to melt in a reactor, meaning that they can be used safely and efficiently in the next generation of reactor designs.
With so many exciting developments on the horizon, it’s clear that the American nuclear industry is ready to take the lead in building the clean energy system that the future requires. Meeting the energy needs of tomorrow in a cost-competitive, carbon-neutral way will require major innovations. Fortunately, as shown in the examples above, the nuclear sector is certainly up to the challenge.
