| Project Detail |
Los Alamos National Laboratory will develop a scalable, compact, high-temperature, heat pipe reactor (HPR) to provide heat and electricity to remote areas. A 15MWth HPR could be built on-site in less than a month and self-regulate its power to plug into microgrids. The team will use high temperature materials via advanced manufacturing to reduce costs, and further cost reduction will be achieved from novel sensors embedded in the reactor core for continuous monitoring, reducing the number of operational staff needed.
Potential Impact:
All the internals of the reactor system, including the reactor core structures, the reflector, radiation shields, and heat exchangers, could be constructed of controlled expansion ceramics that possess superior neutronic and thermal properties. |
