Smaller N-Reactors Promoted Scientist Says Lead-Cooled N-Plants Ideal For Developing Countries

It’s probably fair to say few nuclear engineers have seriously thought about using reactors to make tofu.

But Eric Loewen, an Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory engineer working on a new generation of lead-cooled reactors, has a broad vision of what they could do for the world.

He’d love to design small nuclear reactors that would bring more than electricity to developing countries.

The power plants could produce clean drinking water in the Third World, using gamma rays to kill bacteria. Instead of releasing waste heat into the environment, it might be diverted to help a local business make tofu.

Those kinds of partnerships could build trust in the plant, he said, with local people acting as independent overseers to make sure it runs properly.

“The next generation should really be aimed to do more for the community than make electricity,” said Loewen. “These are the things I think nuclear engineers and the white lab coats need to be thinking about.”

Loewen, who began working at the INEEL last July, is researching how to prevent corrosion in a new generation of lead-cooled nuclear reactors.

The reactors would be smaller, cheaper, safer and would produce less waste than the ones operating today. They might not be politically palatable in this country, but other parts of the world may invest in improved nuclear reactors.

“You could put one in the Third World and burn it for 15 years without refueling,” Loewen said.

Liquid lead has several advantages over water, which has traditionally been used as a coolant in this country’s commercial power plants.

Lead is much denser, which means you can make the reactor smaller while removing the same amount of heat from the radioactive core to make electricity. The metal also makes a better radiation shield.

Neutrons also move much faster in lead than in water. For starters, that means the fuel in the reactor core would last much longer. It would also allow the splitting of radioactive elements in spent nuclear fuel at the same time.

“The neat thing about lead is that the neutrons bounce around a lot,” he said. “Because of that, you can put old nuclear waste in there and burn it up.”

Metal-cooled reactors aren’t new, although almost no research has been done in this country with lead since the 1950s. But liquid lead has its own flaw, which Loewen is trying to overcome. It eats away the metal pipes or vessels that it flows through.

“The lynchpin of the whole thing is corrosion,” he said. “It’s still not really licked.”