“3rd generation reactors do not need external power to run cooling.”
In the new light water reactor designs, you have 72 hours of stored water cooling feed by gravity on the roof of the reactor. After that you had better have the electric power to the pumps reconnected. In a molten salt reactor, the shutdown cooling is accomplished passively using either air and/or water. This reactor design does not need external power to run cooling In a molten salt reactor there is no control rods used for control. Control by Power load following is done by heat expansion of atomic distances between atoms and is independent of any human intervention. Shutdown is accomplishing independent of human actions by melting of a freeze plug where the molten salt is drained to a subcritical dump tank. There the salt is passively air cooled. The Chinese have selected this molten salt design in preference to light water reactor designs for their home grown next generation nuclear reactor. IMHO, the Chinese have excellent engineering instincts. On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 6:47 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Michele Comitini <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Sorry, I do not understand in chap 15 of the book wether you took into >> account LED and fluoreshent lighting or plain old incandescent >> lighting? >> (much of the EU is converting to LED and Fluo by law) >> > > This was U.S. data from 1997, for average household use. There were > probably a lot of compact fluorescent lights in use by that date, but I do > not know what percent was still incandescent. As you see in Fig. 15.2, > lighting is 7%. That is substantial, but it would not affect my estimate > much. > > Heating and cooling are 45%. The biggest single use energy by far. As > explained in the chapter, both can be replaced with direct use of raw heat > (thermal air conditioning). I do not know how much home heating is from > resistance electric heat, or heat pumps, but in any case, both would be > replaced with cold fusion heat, from a co-generator. That would be the most > economical configuration. > > - Jed > >
