Floating, Offshore Nuclear Plant Design Could Withstand Earthquakes and Tsunamis
When an earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant complex in 2011, the aftereffects - specifically, the lack of cooling for the reactor cores and spent fuel due to a shutdown of outside power - caused most of the harm. Jacopo Buongiorno, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, is leading a team of researchers in designing nuclear plants built on floating platforms modeled after those used for offshore drilling. These floating plants could help avoid such consequences in the future. They would be designed to be automatically flooded by the surrounding seawater in a worst-case scenario, providing sufficient cooling to indefinitely prevent any melting of fuel rods, or escape of radioactive material.
Transcript
00:00:02 Today I want to tell you about a new nuclear uh reactor concept that we're developing here at Mit and that is the Possibility of revolutionizing the nuclear industry both in terms of economics and safety This is a floating offshore nuclear power plant it's a plant that can be entirely constructed in a centralized Shipyard and then tow to the site where be Where it would be
00:00:26 Med or anchored a few Miles off the Coast and link to the electric Grid with a uh with a transmission LINE now the idea of a floating Plant is not entirely new in fact the russians are Building A floating plant themselves but the key difference between our concept and theirs is that Ours is not only floating but it's actually sided a few Miles off the Coast and this affords some
00:00:52 absolutely crucial advantages first of all tsunamis and earthquakes are no longer a Um a source of risk for the nuclear plant because essentially the uh Ocean Shields the Seismic Waves and the tsunami Waves in relatively Deep water say 100 meter deep are not big and so They don't pose really a Hazard for the plant Um number two of course the ocean itself can be used as An infinite heat
00:01:20 sink and so the Decay heat uh Which is generated by the nuclear fuel even after the reactor is shut down can be removed indefinitely and this is a maj advantage with respect to current terrestrial Plants in which the uh The Ultimate heat sink is not is not ured necessarily for the very long term as demonstrated by the accident Japan at fukushima Um the other key safety advantage is that
00:01:45 because of distance from shore even if an accident should occur at the plant It will not Force people to evacuate to move away from their homes and their Jobs on shore because of distance and also because of the Possibility of essentially venting uh Radioactive gases underw and Therefore minimizing the impact the impact on on shore Now the a nice characteristic of this idea
00:02:15 is that it combines essentially two established technologies one is Nuclear reactors for example light water reactors pwr and bwr and the other technology is offshore platforms which are currently used obviously for oil and gas exploration and exploration and Extraction so we think that the combination of these two technologies gives some Solid
00:02:38 Um ground on which we can build a a a plant that has a good Economic performance and as i explained an outstanding safety performance and we have a great team here at Mit of students both graduates and undergraduates as well as professors and we're also collaborating with other universities and with industry to develop this uh uh this new
00:02:59 concept