Novel Technological Developments with Impacts on Perspectives for Mobile Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

New research developments suggest that nuclear reactors using fusion may enter the market sooner than imagined even for mobile applications, like merchant ship propulsion and remote power generation. This article aims at pointing such developments and how they could affect nuclear fusion. The method is enumerating the main nuclear reactors concepts, identifying new technological or theoretical developments useful to nuclear field, and analysing how new recombination could affect feasibility of nuclear fusion. New technologies or experimental results do not always work the way people imagine, being better or worse for intended effects or even bringing completely unforeseen effects. Results point the following designs could be successful, in descending order of potential: aneutronic nuclear reactions using lattice confinement, aneutronic nuclear reactions using inertial along magnetic confinement, hybrid fission-lattice confinement fusion, and fission reactions.

Feasibility to Convert the NuScale SMR from UO<sub>2</sub> to a Mixed (U, Th)O<sub>2</sub> Core: A Parametric Study of Fuel Element—Seed-Blanket Concept

“…World Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology and with an initial cost of €$3 billion, had its commercial operation postponed to mid-2023 and the cost increased to €$12.7 billion [4]. Licensing problems, schedule delays and rising costs led to the development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) as a response to the problems of economic competitiveness of nuclear energy with other sources, with respect to costs and construction time [5] [6] [7].…”