Anya Litvak, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reports that Westinghouse CEO Danny Roderick challenged his employees to come up with the next big thing in nuclear energy , the next generation reactor. It had been a long time since such words were uttered at the Cranberry-based nuclear company. His charter was to take a clean sheet approach and come up with the most economic [option], said Cindy Pezze, chief technology officer. The central question was ... How can we get to a more economic future for nuclear? No new nuclear reactor has been built in the U.S. on time and on budget, and the overruns have not been trivial. That track record, along with cheap and plentiful natural gas and a lack of environmental policy that incentivizes low carbon generation, has held back the nuclear renaissance predicted a decade ago. Even operating nuclear plants with capital costs far behind them are having trouble competing.
A handful are headed for premature retirement or shuttering. For that reason, economics and scale are top priorities. The company first step was to whittle down the possibilities. There are six types of Generation IV reactors being researched today. Westinghouse chose the lead-cooled fast neutron reactor concept, which submerges the nuclear core in molten lead and operates at extremely high temperatures. In most of the nuclear reactors now operating, the nuclear core is placed in a pool of water. That prevents radiation from escaping into the air, but as the nuclear reaction heats up the water, cooler water must be constantly pumped in.
Lead offers a more static solution. It absorbs radiation and does not boil until it reaches 3,182 degrees Fahrenheit. Those properties mean a lead-cooled reactor would need fewer pumps, thinner walls and have fewer uncomfortable byproducts, shaving off a portion of capital and operating expenses. The whole operation would be smaller. But Europe and Russia are pulling ahead in the new designs...
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