Safety aspects of the HTR-GT
This is the most important part of the concept. After all, the importance of subjects regarding (nuclear) energy production are: priority 1: safety, priority 2: costs, priority 3: licensing. The engineering itself will follow if these aspects are properly covered.
The most important and incorporated safety feature of the HTR-GT in relation to the environment is the inherently safe character of the pebble bed reactor, which is established by:
- three coatings of the TRISO fuel particles (first containment);
- coatings of the 6 cm fuel pebbles containing the TRISO (second containment);
- burnable poison in the fuel;
- negative temperature coefficient of the nuclear fuel;
- controllability of energy production in the nuclear core;
- removal of decay heat after an incident such as “loss of coolant” or “loss of flow”, in a natural way through natural draft
- low energy density in the core of 3 MW per m3.
The result of this construction, proven by actual tests, is that under all circumstances the fission products remain in the double containment of the TRISO and the 6 cm balls, which are not damaged by high temperatures.