Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since December 2006.

The Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is a generation III+ reactor which builds on the success of the ABWR. Both are designs by General Electric, and are based on their BWR design.

The ESBWR is a passively safe design using natural circulation with no recirculation pumps or their associated piping.

The passively safe characteristics are mainly based on Isolation Condensers, which are heat exchangers that take steam from the vessel (Isolation Condensers, IC) or the containment (Passive Containment Cooling System, PCCS), condense the steam, transfer the heat to a water pool, and introduce the water into the vessel again.

This is also based on the Gravity Driven Cooling System (GDCS), which are pools above the vessel that when very low water level is detected in the reactor, the depressurization system opens several very large valves to reduce vessel pressure and finally to allow these GDCS pools to reflood the vessel.

The core is shorter than conventional BWR plants because of the smaller core flow (caused by the natural circulation). There are 1132 bundles and the thermal power is 4500 MWth (1550 MWe).

Below the vessel, there is a piping structure which allows for cooling of the core during a very severe accident. These pipes divide the molten core and cool it with water flowing through the piping.

The probability of radiactivity release to the atmosphere is several orders of magnitude lower than conventional nuclear power plants, and the building cost is 60-70% of other Light Water Reactors.

The energy production cost is lower than other plants due to:

1) Lower initial capital cost

2) Lower operational and maintenance cost