General Design Specifications of (FP)2 Micro-Reactor
Transport: The reactor would have to be transportable by conventional means such as trucks and ships. The reactor would fit in one or two civil standard naval containers of 40ft (12.029x2.346x2.359 m). This format makes it compatible with all conventional transport platforms regardless the country. The transport should also be possible after ten years of operation when the reactor will be brought back to the factory.
Fast installation and setup: The reactor should require small infrastructures onsite to limit the construction time. Once out of the factory the reactor should be operational in less than 30 days. This fast readiness can be useful in other circumstances such as the setting of an operational base or after a disaster.
Long duration cycle: As the reactor might be installed in a remote area, the objective is to limit physical intervention as much as possible. Thus, the fuel cycle must be long to avoid heavy operations such as refueling. The reactor will be loaded in the factory, be delivered, will function for ten years, and then will be brought back to the factory to be reloaded or decommissioned. It also means that the special competences needed will not have to be moved from the headquarters.
Operational capability: The reactor should be easy to operate to allow engineers with a basic training to manage it. It should also require low maintenance and easy procedures to assess the good functioning. The reactor might be remotely controlled with only a small crew onsite with a security detail.
Manufacturing: The reactor should be entirely constructed in a factory to ensure the best quality requirements and control procedures. Quality control and processes from other industries could be applied to improve the level of requirements possibly attainable, as well as efficiency in reactor deployment.
Decommissioning: The reactor should be compatible with a full decommissioning in the factory. Such solution will improve the safety of the workers as well as the protection of the environment and the security. It will allow a stricter monitoring of the story of each unit to ensure further safety.
Electricity Production: The reactor should produce a coherent level of power. The target is to create a 1MWe power source to feed electricity to about 1000 people.
Heat Production: The reactor should be an adaptable source of heat. The produced heat can be used for water purification, desalinization, district heating, industrial heat or every need the client might have with a heat source of 300°C.
Modularity: The reactor should be able to function in groups to create an adaptable power supply for middle size needs. For example, a group of three 1MWe unit could function at the maximum energy demand peak when only one will provide energy to the grid at night.
Fully Passive: The reactor must be as passive as possible to reduce the errors and interactions possible with the maneuvers. The reactor should be able to shut down itself in case of problem without needing extensive operations. It should not rely on evolved principles to control it like AI or machine learning.
First Principle: The reactor must use in priority simple physical principles and not rely on complex phenomena. In fact, thermal conduction, thermal dilation, change of state and gravity should drive the reactor and should be privileged. This apply for the design steps, because of the simplicity of the physical phenomena, the reactor should be easier to model and understand, but also for the operational period where one will be able to seize easily what is happening in the core.
Safety: The reactor must be as safe as the other reactors and might feature an improved resilience to some accidents. It must feature systems that will mitigate or practically eliminate the risks or the consequences of a severe accident. The reactor should have a limited impact on the environment with no radioactive rejects.
Technological readiness: The reactor must use flight-proven technologies or at least known concepts to ensure that no extensive tests will have to be conducted. The fulfilment of this particular requirement will determine the Technological Readiness Level and the time needed to build prototype or a FOAK unit.
Competitiveness: The reactor must be competitive against other energy production means such as gas and petrol, coal, wind, photovoltaic and hydroelectric sources. The competitiveness will allow the wide spreading of the technology.
Security: The reactor should feature system that will render it difficult to destroy or misuse by human attacks like terrorism.
Fuel: The reactor should use civil fuel with enrichment lower than 5%U5 to be considered as a production reactor. If it turns out that more enrichment is needed it should never go above 20%. It should also compel with the non-proliferation treaties.
