Tsinghua-MIT Modular Pebble Bed Reactor

The ojbective is to develop a sufficient technical and economic basis for this type of reactor plant to determine whether it can compete with natural gas and still meet safety, proliferation resistance and waste disposal concerns.

Since 2003 MIT and Tsinghua University have collaborated on the development of a pebble-bed nuclear reactor.  This collaboration was the first covered by an international agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy and the China Atomic Energy Authority that established mechanisms for the United States and China to exchange technologies and ideas relating to nuclear power.  The majority of interactions have been in for the form of information exchange, visits to the HTR-10 reactor, and the presentation of papers in Beijing.  The current MIT research on the pebble-bed reactor dates back to an MIT Independent Activities Period class led by Professor Andrew Kadak in 1998.  The reactor could become a cost-competitive, meltdown-proof alternative to today's commercial nuclear power plants. Kadak believes that the China Ministry of Science and Technology is willing to fund additional research on pebble-bed reactors since China plans to build a full-scale prototype by 2013. Construction of this demonstration reactor is scheduled for this year.  The actual building of a pebble bed reactor in China could provide an important learning activity for MIT students.  In the summer of 2008, Kadak received a request from the Director of the Institute of Nuclear Engineering Technology at Tsinghua to brainstorm ideas for a future collaboration between MIT and Tsinghua. Of particular interest is in the area of safety analyses and core physics designs. Initial exchanges between MIT and Tsinghua were supported by the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment and MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives. Research funding was subsequently provided by the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy.