4 ms·
Gigawatt reactors do not fit in a small room. Even the reactor itself is the size of a large room. Then there is a huge amount of infrastructure around them, th
by titzer 4y ago
Gigawatt reactors do not fit in a small room. Even the reactor itself is the size of a large room. Then there is a huge amount of infrastructure around them, then enormous cooling towers. Forget about power density when you have sites measured in tens or hundreds of acres with 300 foot towers--ultimately heat has to be dissipated to the environment, and that takes space.
- perihelions 4y agoThe entire heat source, the active part of the core, very easily fits in a small room (at a mean power density somewhere around 100 MW/m^3 for water-cooled reactors). I'm talking about the difficultly of heat removal, not trying to minimize size or complexity or anything.
- titzer 4y agoSure, but you gotta consider the entire system, so adding the heat pumping system actually may decrease the overall power generated per unit of volume; at least, certainly increase cost and decrease reliability. I wonder if thousands of SMRs spread over an area wouldn't actually generate more power per acre.