Channel reactors: Status and prospects

Conclusions

The prospects for nuclear power plants with channel reactors depend on the significant experience accumulated in building and operating such plants. Among the characteristics of the design and construction of nuclear power plants with RBMK reactors, classified, under deep analysis, as deficiencies in the light of the Chernobyl accident, not one was specific to the channel idea. The MKÉR-800 design shows how the deficiencies of the RBMK construction can be avoided and how the advantages of the channel idea can be most fully realized.

The current trends in the development of the traditional reactor designs, while certainly increasing the safety of the next generation of nuclear power plants, still do not take into account the materialization of the most severe accidents at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power plants. Therefore we are justified in considering the strategic problem of developing inherently safe reactors (operating on fast neutrons) in order to achieve a radical solution to the problems of safety, wastes, ecology, and the future fuel supply.