This week, we talk Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) with James Krellenstein, the CEO of Alva Energy. We dive into the engineering, history, and physics of these reactors, how they differ from other designs, and why the United States may have erred in not choosing the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) instead of the Westinghouse AP-1000 for the Vogtle nuclear power plant.For this episode, we’ve included a glossary below to help with unfamiliar terms:
- ABWR: Advanced Boiling Water Reactor
- ATWS: Anticipated Transient Without Scram
- BORAX experiments: Historical experiments testing reactor limits through deliberate failures
- BWR: Boiling Water Reactor
- COPS: Containment Overpressure Protection System
- CRDM: Control Rod Drive Mechanism
- ESBWR: Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor
- FLEX: Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies (post-Fukushima enhancements)
- IGSCC: Intergranular Stress Corrosion Cracking
- NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
- NSSS: Nuclear Steam Supply System (N Triple-S)
- PRA: Probabilistic Risk Assessment
- PWR: Pressurized Water Reactor
- RCIC: Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System
- RPV: Reactor Pressure Vessel
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