MIT designs floating nuclear plants

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/floating-nuclear-plants-could-ride-out-tsunamis-0416
by thrill • 12 years ago
6 0 12 years ago

A new design for nuclear plants built on floating platforms, modeled after those used for offshore oil drilling, could help avoid such consequences [as the lack of cooling for the reactor cores, due to a shutdown of all power at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant complex during an earthquake and tsunami] in the future. Such floating plants would be designed to be automatically cooled by the surrounding seawater in a worst-case scenario, which would indefinitely prevent any melting of fuel rods, or escape of radioactive material.

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newsoffice.mit.edu