'Many people see this technology as a kind of game changer.' Professor Jan Leen Kloosterman, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands In MSFR systems, a ‘meltdown has no meaning’, according to Professor Jan Leen Kloosterman, a nuclear energy expert from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Professor Jörg Starflinger, a nuclear energy expert from the University of Stuttgart in Germany, is also working on sC02-HeRo and says that its compact system means it can ’be tailored for old power plants’ and ‘new ones too’.Īnother technology that could prevent a meltdown is a Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR), which uses molten salt combined with thorium and uranium to simultaneously act as a fuel and coolant. ‘The system kicks in automatically and no operator action is required,’ said Prof. In a reactor’s case, it can rapidly remove heat from the core’s surface and release it through steam. Its strength rests in the fact that supercritical CO2 is able to transport huge amounts of heat in a low-cost, non-toxic and non-flammable way. In theory, the system designed by sCO2-HeRo would stop a meltdown before it begins, opening a window for power plant operators to identify, and address, the potential overheating of the core by, for example, alternative mobile cooling systems. ‘By removing the heat, it prevents a potential core meltdown and buys time to react,’ said Professor Dieter Brillert from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, who is the project coordinator of sCO2-HeRo, an EU-funded project developing the technology. The supercritical CO2 approach effectively removes heat build-up from a core without the requirement of external power sources, meaning it could work if the power is somehow cut, for example, during a natural disaster. They are working towards different ways to eliminate the risk of nuclear meltdowns, with automatic methods such as a heat removal system using so-called supercritical CO2, a state where the chemical has properties of both a gas and a liquid, and the use of molten salt. However, if the threat of a meltdown can be removed, some scientists think we should reconsider tapping into this carbon-free source of energy. Over the last few decades, public fears in some countries have prevented more nuclear power from entering the grid. The core - where the nuclear reactions take place - can’t withstand the rising temperature and begins to melt, allowing radioactive materials to possibly escape into the environment. A nuclear meltdown happens when the reactor's residual power exceeds the heat that can be removed by the cooling systems.
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