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From “Inherently Safe” to “Proliferation Resistant”: New Perspectives on Reactor Designs
Nuclear Technology ( IF 1.5 ) Pub Date : 2021-03-02 , DOI: 10.1080/00295450.2020.1837584
Sonja D. Schmid 1
Affiliation  

Abstract

A recent American “mini-series” on Chernobyl, widely watched across the world, presented viewers with the concluding finding that this massive accident had occurred because the reactor design had inherent flaws; flaws that were known but not previously fixed because it was “cheaper” that way. The reactor design in question is the RBMK, and this paper will argue that this design was far from “cheap,” neither then nor now, and that its adoption as the second standard design for the Soviet Union’s nuclear power reactor fleet was based on much more than economic considerations. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to forget that reactor designs are always chosen for a multitude of reasons and never solely based on their technical or economic merits. Based on archival research, interviews, and industry publications, I show that approving and building RBMK reactors made good sense at the time, despite later claims to the contrary. Then I take the examples of a small modular reactor (SMR), the proposed NuScale Power Module, and a fast neutron reactor, TerraPower’s proposed Traveling Wave Reactor, to argue that we witness comparable negotiations today, as new designs for reactors (1) attempt to fit into existing safety and regulatory frameworks, (2) navigate security and nonproliferation concerns, and (3) embody visions of a specific sociotechnical order. I conclude that technical designs never occur in a socioeconomic, political, or cultural vacuum; instead, they are developed by people steeped in social norms, regulatory concerns, and economic expectations of a specific time and place. In the spirit of making this point relevant to practitioners, I will suggest ways of making these implicit frameworks visible, to actively and consciously start tweaking them, while staying aware of the implications that technical choices may have on our social expectations and vice versa.



中文翻译:

从“本质安全”到“防扩散”:反应堆设计的新视角

摘要

最近美国在切尔诺贝利事件上的“迷你系列”在世界范围内受到广泛关注,向观众展示的结论是,这次大规模事故的发生是因为反应堆设计存在固有缺陷;已知但以前未修复的缺陷,因为这样“更便宜”。所讨论的反应堆设计是 RBMK,本文将争辩说这种设计远非“便宜”,无论是当时还是现在,它作为苏联核动力反应堆机队的第二个标准设计的采用是基于很多多于经济考虑。事后看来,很容易忘记选择反应堆设计总是出于多种原因,而绝不仅仅是基于其技术或经济优势。根据档案研究、访谈和行业出版物,我表明当时批准和建造 RBMK 反应堆是有意义的,尽管后来声称相反。然后我以小型模块化反应堆 (SMR)、提议的 NuScale 功率模块和快速中子反应堆、TerraPower 提议的行波反应堆为例,论证我们今天见证了类似的谈判,因为反应堆的新设计 (1) 尝试适应现有的安全和监管框架,(2) 解决安全和防扩散问题,以及 (3) 体现特定社会技术秩序的愿景。我的结论是,技术设计永远不会发生在社会经济、政治或文化真空中;相反,它们是由沉浸在特定时间和地点的社会规范、监管问题和经济预期中的人们开发的。本着使这一点与从业者相关的精神,

更新日期:2021-03-02
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