One could think of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) as the US service station for all American things nuclear. Here we explores the Laboratory’s role in microreactors and recent developments in the field.
Since 1949, 52 research reactors at INL have been built to test how to use nuclear systems safely. While all but four have been decommissioned, their contribution includes:
- the first usable electricity generated by nuclear power,
- the first city powered by atomic energy, and
- the first nuclear propulsion systems for US Navy submarines and aircraft carriers.
One of the most interesting research facilities at INL is the Advanced Test Reactor, and this article outlines a particularly interesting aspect of the INL’s work: nuclear microreactors.
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The size of microreactors
While many ESI Africa readers are familiar with the term small modular reactors (SMRs), fewer will be acquainted with microreactors.
Microreactors are 100 to 1,000 times smaller than a normal nuclear power plant’s reactor. Compared with an SMR (producing 20MWe to 300MWe), microreactors can be defined as reactors producing 1 to 20MWe.
While SMRs like South Africa’s Pebble Bed reactor and the HTMR-100 are quite recent, the first microreactors were produced in the US some 60 years ago.
Early days
In the 1950s, the US was in the throes of the Cold War, and most nuclear research focused on military applications. It is not surprising that the first microreactors were intended to supply power… [download the Energy & Storage Volume to continue reading]
