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High Temperature Advantages
- High temperatures improve thermal efficiency and allow flexible load following in gas turbines.
- High temperature gas reactors uniquely enable industrial process heat applications, offering economic and safety benefits.
Power Density and Core Design
- High temperature gas reactors have roughly a tenth the power density of light water reactors due to helium loss and neutronics.
- Their design requires tall, skinny cores for passive decay heat conduction and neutron moderation.
Peach Bottom Success Then Shutdown
- Peach Bottom was a well-operated 40 MW electric demonstration with 88% availability and 74% capacity factor.
- Despite good performance, it shut down due to economic competition from larger reactors nearby.