Business View Magazine - Dec 2023

As a result, these two systems combined actually allow the design of new-generation plants to strip out safety layers that have been rendered obsolete by Gen-4 technology without losing any functionality, leading to a much cheaper but doubly effective reactor design. SCALED-DOWN DESIGN CREATES SCALED-UP PRODUCTION As an added benefit, because the cost profile has decreased, the design has become largely modularized, allowing even smaller-scale reactors to be built within fabrication facilities as opposed to large-scale construction sites. This has resulted in a major boost in efficiency. According to Shoukas,“That is where you get greater certainty, greater quality, greater safety [which] you can deploy much quicker because it saves time on your schedule.” These new modular reactors have revitalized the focus on the viability of nuclear energy among many organizations as well. [and] incidents that were caused by malpractice, operator intervention, or other external factors.” Fortunately, according to Tawfik, the newgeneration four reactor technologies available also “use advanced fuel systems [that] allow for these new nuclear energyplants to be inherently safe,meaning they can’t accelerate and create a radiological incident.They’ll actually slow themselves down and stop all on their own without any sort of operator intervention whatsoever.” Even with a loss of cooling or power or anyweather- related incident, the reactor can shut itself down safely without anybody having to intervene without any sort of release of radiological elements into the atmosphere. Additionally, Gen-4 reactors also use Tri-structural Isotropic particle fuel (TRISO fuel). Each TRISO particle is made up of a uranium fuel kernel, which is encapsulated by three layers of carbon and ceramic-based materials to prevent the release of radioactive fission products. 101 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 12 PCL CONSTRUCT ION- NUCLEAR