Tighe Smith, Chief Marketing Officer at Paragon Energy Solutions, and Chris Freeman, Nuclear Technical Lead at Reuter-Stokes, return to discuss the changes they are seeing in the SMR development landscape and the insights they have learned over the past year. If you missed Part 1, you can watch it on-demand here.
Small Modular Reactor technology - the design and construction of smaller and more cost-efficient reactors - is a growing factor in achieving the green and clean energy strategies adopted by the energy sector. While SMRs represent a safe, clean, and reliable method of power production, the technology is only now emerging as a viable option due to advances in technology of construction and design. These new designs operate in ways sometimes quite different from ‘normal’ nuclear power: higher temperatures, pressures, materials, and applications reveal an array of previously un-considered challenges to safe operation.
In many cases with new designs, most effort is expended on core design and reactor modeling and simulation, but industry experience shows that these new reactors require custom solutions for reactor power and radiation monitoring. There is no such thing as an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution for unique reactors that have not yet seen the light of day. Deferring consideration of the essential aspects of reactor control and instrumentation can cause large delays in these complex projects, potentially killing an otherwise promising concept.
In this webinar, Reuter Stokes and Paragon Energy Solutions will address many of the complex technical challenges confronting the design and implementation of SMR reactor design. Special attention is given to nuclear instrumentation and where innovation on old designs will be necessary to help this emerging market succeed. Register today to learn more about why nuclear instrumentation is a critical part of SMR design and safety.
Key Learning Objectives
- Understand the basics of nuclear reactors
- Learn the difference between typical commercial power reactors and small modular reactors
- Unpack the technical challenges in instrumentation
- Determine solutions and the path forward in this market
