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Natrium employs hot, liquid sodium as a coolant, and dispenses with the moderator entirely. This is another idea that dates back to the 1950s, but one which has never been widely deployed. Yet sodium offers several advantages as a coolant, says Chris Levesque, TerraPower's boss. The liquid sodium's high temperature—around 500°C— makes the reactor more efficient. At the same time, liquid sodium is much less corrosive to pipes than hot water. And though the water in LWRS is pumped through at high pressure, Natrium is designed to operate at close to atmospheric pressure. That means pipes, containment buildings and the like can be less beefy without affecting safety. TerraPower reckons its reactor needs only 20% of the concrete required by an LWR of equivalent power, which helps keep down costs.
鈉采用熱的液態(tài)鈉作為冷卻劑，完全省去了慢化劑。這是另一個(gè)可以追溯到20世紀(jì)50年代的想法，但從未被廣泛應(yīng)用。然而，泰拉能源的老板克里斯·萊韋斯克說(shuō)，鈉作為一種冷卻劑有幾個(gè)優(yōu)點(diǎn)。液態(tài)鈉的高溫——大約500°C——能夠使反應(yīng)器更加有效。與此同時(shí)，液態(tài)鈉對(duì)管道的腐蝕性要比熱水小得多。雖然LWRS中的水是在高壓下泵入的，但鈉的設(shè)計(jì)是在接近大氣壓力的情況下運(yùn)行。這意味著管道、安全殼建筑等可以在不影響安全的情況下變得不那么堅(jiān)固。泰拉能源估計(jì)，同等功率下，它的反應(yīng)堆只需要LWR所需混凝土的20%，這有助于降低成本。
The firm's second big idea is its moltensalt energy-storage system. Inspiration for this came from the solar-power industry, says Mr Levesque. Solar-thermal systems (in contradistinction to the more familiar photovoltaic ones that generate electricity directly) have, for several years, used similar tanks to store excess solar energy harvested during the day. In Natrium's case, the sodium coolant transfers heat from the reactor into the molten-salt tanks. A separate set of pipes then removes heat from the tanks and uses it to produce electricity.
該公司的第二大創(chuàng)意是它的熔鹽儲(chǔ)能系統(tǒng)。萊韋斯克先生說(shuō)，其靈感來(lái)自太陽(yáng)能行業(yè)。多年來(lái)，太陽(yáng)能熱系統(tǒng)(與更常見(jiàn)的直接發(fā)電的光伏系統(tǒng)相比)一直使用類似的水箱來(lái)儲(chǔ)存白天收集的多余太陽(yáng)能。在鈉的例子中，鈉冷卻劑將熱量從反應(yīng)堆轉(zhuǎn)移到熔鹽槽中。然后，一組獨(dú)立的管道從儲(chǔ)罐中除去熱量，并利用它來(lái)發(fā)電。
TerraPower hopes this arrangement will let the new reactor ramp its power out-put up and down, depending on the price of electricity. This is something that LWRS struggle to do. The firm's demonstration plant will usually produce 345 megawatts (MW) of electrical power. But by releasing the energy stored in the molten-salt tanks, it will be able to boost that to 500mw for over five-and-a-half hours. This should be a useful trick as power grids fill up with wind and solar farms that are likely to cause power prices to fluctuate more than they do at present. Combined with lower construction costs, TerraPower hopes such agility will make its plant more economically attractive than older designs.
泰拉能源希望這種安排能讓新反應(yīng)堆根據(jù)電力價(jià)格的不同，使其電力輸出上下波動(dòng)。這是LWRS努力去做的事情。該公司的示范工廠通常會(huì)產(chǎn)生345兆瓦的電力。但是通過(guò)釋放儲(chǔ)存在熔鹽罐里的能量，它將能夠?qū)⒛芰刻岣叩?00兆瓦，持續(xù)超過(guò)五個(gè)半小時(shí)。這應(yīng)該是一個(gè)有用的技巧，因?yàn)殡娋W(wǎng)與風(fēng)力和太陽(yáng)能發(fā)電廠連接起來(lái)很可能導(dǎo)致電力價(jià)格比目前波動(dòng)更多。再加上較低的建設(shè)成本，泰拉能源希望這種靈活性將使其工廠比舊的設(shè)計(jì)更具經(jīng)濟(jì)吸引力。
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