The Passive Safety Features of the GE ESBWR

Here's some neat video we just got our hands on: An explanation of the passive safety systems of the General Electric ESBWR nuclear power plant:

Neat stuff.

Comments

Luke said…

A very neat video, and explains the technology of passive cooling very well.

One thing that interested me, however, is that in GE's concept art, as seen at the end of the video, the reactor does not have a conventional, massive cylindrical of the sort we associate with power reactor technology at present.

What sort of containment building is GE planning to engineer for these reactors?

October 18, 2007 at 12:42 AM

Alex Brown said…

Many, if not all, current BWRs don't have the "conventional" cylinders. For example if you look at the following link for browns ferry it just looks like a big warehouse or similar building from the outside and yet holds three nuclear reactors. If you click on the smaller image you can also see the primary and secondary containment schemes. Basically just a big concrete box instead of a big concrete cylinder.

October 18, 2007 at 10:19 AM

Anonymous said…

The cylindrical containment is typical of PWR's, not BWR's.

October 19, 2007 at 6:15 AM

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