Dear PT:
Actually, a HTGCFBR (High Temperature Gas Cooled Fast Breeder Reactor) has four major advantages. One, the high temperature gas, usually helium, allows for small high efficiency gas turbine generators rather than the giant steam turbines used in Pressurized Water Reactors. Two, the waste heat can be used to heat a large city area, like Menomonee Valley Power heating the downtown here in Milwaukee. Three, safety, as the reactor could be shut down merely by flooding the core with water. Four, it generates more fissionable material than it uses, thus, multiplying the large uranium deposits in this country (the largest in the world IIRC). Currently, even with the large amount of safety measures (vastly more than necessary as if the WTC or Pentagon were built to those standards, even a Galaxy class cargo plane filled with highly explosive cargo, could not bring down either building), nuclear power is less than coal fired power on a cents per KWH base load basis.
Nuclear power can be used to generate hydrogen gas which can even substitute for NG in heating and oil in transportation (ships, planes, trains, autos and trucks). All without any greenhouse gas emissions.
Pete |
