The New Age of Nuclear Power

 

By Spencer Reiss /

Originally published in Wired.

 

Get ready for the mass-produce, meltdown-proof future of nuclear energy

 

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A team of Chinese scientists advising the Beijing leadership estimates that by 2050, China could require 300 gigawatts of nuclear output, not much less than the 350 gigawatts produced worldwide today. To meet that growing demand, physicists and engineers at Tsinghua University’s Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) in Beijing are building a new nuclear power facility that promises a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor.

 

Small enough to be assembled from massproduced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts, this reactor brings nuclear power into a new age. Plus, the reactor’s safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete.

 

A better design

 

Just 40 minutes from Tsinghua University, a five-story, cube-shaped building nestles against a mountainside. Beneath its cavernous main room are the 100 tons of steel, graphite and hydraulic gear known as HTR-10 (i.e., hightemperature reactor, 10 megawatt).

 

Instead of white-hot fuel rods that fire a conventional reactor, HTR-10 is powered by 27,000 billiard-sized graphite balls packed with tiny flecks of uranium. Instead of superhot water — intensely corrosive and highly radioactive — the core is bathed in inert helium. The gas can reach much higher temperatures than water without bursting pipes, which means more energy pushing the turbine. No water means no steam, and no billion-dollar pressure dome to contain it in the event of a leak. And with the uranium sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide — designed to last 1 million years — there’s no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.

 

Furthermore, this reactor is meltdown-proof.

Vocabulary Focus

harness (v) [5hB:nis] to control something, usually in order to use its power

cavernous (adj) [5kAvEnEs] describing something with a very large, open space inside it

impermeable (adj) [im5pE:mjEbl] not allowing anything, such as liquid or gas, to go through it

spent (adj) [spent] completely used to the point of no longer having any power or effectiveness

 

Specialized Terms

meltdown (n) 核电厂反应堆核心熔毁 a serious accident in which nuclear fuel becomes too hot, melts through its container and escapes into the environment

gigawatt (n) 百万千瓦；10亿瓦特 a unit for measuring power equal to one billion watts

reactor (n) 反应堆 a large machine that uses nuclear fuel to produce power

graphite (n) 石墨 a soft, dark-grey form of carbon, used in the middle of pencils, as a lubricant in machines, and in some atomic reactors

fuel rod (n) 燃料棒 a metal tube containing nuclear fuel that is used in some types of nuclear reactors to produce nuclear power

uranium (n) 铀 a heavy metallic element that is radioactive and is used in the production of nuclear power and in some types of nuclear weapons

radioactive (adj) 放射性的 possessing or producing the energy that comes from the breaking up of atoms

turbine (n) 涡轮（机）；叶轮（机） a type of machine through which liquid or gas flows and turns a special wheel with blades in order to produce power

核能发电新时代

张梵 译

 

准备迎接大量生产、反应堆核心不会熔毁的核能发电新时代

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一个提供北京当局建议的中国科学家团队，预计中国于2050年时，将需要3000亿瓦的核能电力输出，与当今全球3500亿瓦的电力输出相差不远。为应对这波升高的电力需求，北京清华大学核能与新能源技术研究院的物理学家及工程师，正着手兴建一座称为卵石床实验反应堆的核能发电设备，以加强利用原子能量。

该反应堆体积小，可由大量生产的组件组装而成，而且价格低廉，客户纵然没有数十亿美元预算，也可购买，因而将核能发电带入一个新时代。此外，反应堆的安全取决于物理因素，而非操作者的技术或钢筋混凝土是否坚固。

 

更好的设计

距清华大学40分钟车程的山坡旁，紧依着一座5层楼的立方体形建筑物。建筑物如巨穴般的主房间下方，是座由100吨钢铁、石墨及水压设备组成的 HTR-10（即10兆瓦高温反应堆）。

HTR-10 高温反应堆不用点燃传统反应堆的白热燃料棒，而是使用2.7万颗撞球般大小、内含铀微粒的石墨球体作为动力来源。HTR-10也不用腐蚀性超强及放射度高的极烫热水，而是将核心浸在惰性氦气中。氦气可耐比水温高很多的温度而不会令管线爆裂，意即可产生较多的能量来驱动涡轮机。不用水就不会产生水蒸气，同时也不需要价值数十亿美元的压力舱来控制蒸气外泄情况。由于铀被一层层的石墨及非渗透性碳化硅密封，因此不会有燃料棒被用尽后，产生一堆蒸气之虞；密封层的设计为了使其可使用100万年。耗尽的球体会直接送到地下室的镀铅钢铁容器中。

尤有甚者，这座反应堆使用的是防熔毁核心。