High-temperature gas-cooled reactor

Hino, Ryutaro; Ogawa, Masuro

The goal of broadening industrial applications of nuclear energy while significantly cutting CO emission can be achieved with the near-term deployable, passively-safe high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), which can supply heat of high-temperatures of up to 950C to a wide range of industrial plants for CO-free hydrogen production, power generation, etc. This paper introduces technical features of HTGR and the current status of HTGR developments worldwide with emphasis on the R&D activities conducted by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). JAEA as the center of excellence on R&D of the HTGR system in Japan, which leads the world R&D on HTGR and nuclear hydrogen production technologies, has successfully carried out the reactor passive safety demonstration and most recently the 50-day high-temperature operation test by using the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) of 30 MWt. Based on the test results obtained in the HTTR, a commercial power generation system with gas turbine and an advanced system cogenerating electricity by the gas turbine and hydrogen by a thermochemical method have been designed. This paper concludes by giving a perspective of future HTGR developments.