The high temperature gas-cooled reactor

Starting from historical developments in the area of High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTR or HTGR) this article highlights the most significant recent achievements of this technology internationally and explains its potential value in a modern energy economy beyond pure electricity generation. The HTR is a relatively simple Small Modular Reactor design featuring demonstrated robust passive and inherent safety. It responds to the needs of a very large and growing process heat market in most industrialized countries many of which pursue a stringent policy of reducing fossil fuel burn. The article concludes with an outlook on work towards building demonstration plants, which are required to de-risk private investments and to incentivize deployment. The authors are members of the VHTR System Steering Committee of the Generation IV International Forum. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

Demonstration plants, International cooperation, Gas cooled reactors, Hydrogen production, Safety, Power generation, Heat, Small modular reactors

Citation

Fütterer, M. A., Strydom, Sato, H., Li, F., Abonneau, E., Abram, T., Davies, M. W., Kim, M., Edwards, L., Muransky, O., Pouchon, M. A., & Yetisir, M. (2021). The high temperature gas-cooled reactor. In Greenspan, E. (ed), Encyclopedia of Nuclear Energy, (pp. 512-522). Oxford: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.12205-5