Talk:Advanced gas-cooled reactor
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What about noble gas coolants? Do noble gases have high neutron cross sections? If not, then you might be able to have a graphite/tungsten carbide walled, noble gas (argon, helium, neon, xenon, krypton) cooled reactor reach 2000-2500C operation temperature, giving extreme theoretical thermal efficiency in a noble gas fluid based heat engine of 90% (i.e. carnot limit=1-273K/(273K+2500C))=90.1%), meaning only 10% waste and thermal pollution compared to 30-40% efficiency and 60-70% waste heat as with current reactors. Water and steam as a thermal fluid (and turbines based on them) would be totally out of the question in this scheme because at 2500C water thermolyses to oxygen/hydrogen, plus even as undecomposed as water it corrodes/dissolves wall materials. There could be coolant water attached to the low temperature end of the closed-loop heat engine (such as Stirling engines), at the 0-100C end that removes the waste heat. Sillybilly 04:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
- Helium was certainly a possibility, but in Europe largescale supply was difficult back in the days Magnox/AGR were designed - the U.S. would not export it as a strategic material, see [1]. Have you looked at the modern Very high temperature reactor and Pebble bed reactor designs? Rwendland 10:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] BBC radio program on recent AGR problems
FYI BBC Radio 4 program on the recent AGR problems (cracks in graphite and cooling pipes) "File On 4: Nuclear blackout?" [2] can still be listened to on the internet at [3]. Transcript at [4]. Rwendland 22:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
