we put them in submarines dont we ??
we put them in submarines dont we ??
Submarines have the entire ocean to use for the coolant cycle, which allows for the much smaller footprint. The primary function of an atomic pile is to produce heat energy, which is then used to drive some kind of reciprocating or rotating motion, to spool up dynamos which then power the more efficient electric motors to be used to turn the propellers on the final drive. Steam is often the medium used to carry the energy to the mechanism, be it a turbine, or a swashplate, or even an older design of a reciprocating piston-driven multi-cylinder engine. It is a matter of harnessing the heat energy for the most efficient means of recovering the maximum that can be extracted before releasing the excess heat to the environment.
Thorium-fueled Molten Salt reactors are an even more adaptable design that is highly scalable, and which produce virtually no long-lived isotopes as a result of operation, and are inherently impossible to fail due to a runaway reaction and overheating, causing the “China Syndrome”, which was always a possibility with the older uranium-fueled Light Water reactors.
we put them in submarines dont we ??
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So true
It takes a sizable crew 24-hour-a-day watch to keep them safe.