Professor Tian Jiafu, from Tsinghua University Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, led a project team using the existing fuel balls of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor to make a regular pebble-bed modular reactor.
It integrates a mature gas-vapor combined cycle to achieve a thermal efficiency of 60% for dual fuel operation. Only two 2 × 417MWt small reactors would fully meet the demand of 1000MWe power generation. It not only has good safety and highly reliable technical equipment, but also the total investment will be less than 50% of the total nuclear power investment. It can meet the base load and peak regulation of many power grids.
When the reactor pressure vessel is placed horizontally and equipped with a gas turbine, it becomes a new type of mobile nuclear power device with a light weight and a fast start-up, which has a broad application prospect.
