Business World

The Sandia mini-reactor would be about the size of a two- or three-storey office building. At its heart is a small uranium core submerged in a tank of liquid sodium. The sodium capturies the high temperatures of the core and carries it to a heat exchanger, where liquid carbon dioxide then absorbs the heat. The CO2 expands rapidly, forcing its way through a jet-like turbine that spins an electric generator. It would be a closed-loop system, meaning the CO2 would be recycled over and over again.

The reactor would have command-and-control systems and passive safety features, and be buried in an underground containment building and monitored 24-7 with sensors. It wouldn’t need water for cooling. The fuel would be loaded in the factory prior to delivery and there would be enough to operate nearly 20 years. After that, its uranium fuel cartridge would be switched out with a new cartridge. About 95 per cent of the fuel waste from the old cartridges would be recycled into new fuel.

Sandia isn’t the only group thinking this way. Power-plant equipment maker Babcock & Wilcox has entered the small nuclear market, and a number of start-ups – Hyperion Power and NuScale Power among them – are also blazing a trail.

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