HPR4553: Nuclear Reactor Technology - Ep 4 Less Common Reactor Types

Hosted by Whiskeyjack on 2026-01-14 00:00:00

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02 Less Common Reactor Types

In this episode we discuss some of the less common historical reactor types.

These are a mixture of less common commercial types and some experimental or research reactors.

I will cover advanced or future designs in another episode.

03 Minor Successes

04 Magnox

07 AGR - Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor

10 LWGR - Light Water Graphite Moderated Reactor (RBMK)

14 Historical Oddities or Dead Ends

15 Organically Cooled Reactors

16 Organically Cooled and Moderated

18 Organically Cooled and Heavy Water Moderated

24 HTGCR High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor

28 HWLWR - Heavy Water Light Water Reactor or SGHWR - Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor

31 Reactors Making a Comeback

32 Pebble Bed Reactors

33 AVR

35 THTR-300

36 South Africa, China, and the US

39 Making a Come Back?

40 MSR - Molten Salt Reactors

41 Slow or Fast Neutron Reactors

42 Fuel

43 Salts

44 Why Some Variants Use Dissolved Fuel

46 History

47 Types of Molten Salt Reactor

48 Pros and Cons

52 Overall

53 Conclusion

In this episode we discussed some of the less common historical reactor types.

As we have seen, there have been a number of different reactor designs which were less commercially successful for one reason or another.

Some of them may make a come back however, particularly as the basis for a small reactor.

In the next episode we will describe fast neutron reactors.

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