Education and Training Series #7: Super-Critical Water-cooled Reactor
Part of a webinar series hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group since 2016.
Who should attend?
Policymakers, industry professionals, regulators, researchers, students, the general public.
About the "GIF Education and Training" Webinars
These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.
These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG).
About this Webinar
Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactors (SCWRs) are a class of high temperature, high pressure water-cooled reactors that operate above the thermodynamic critical point of water (374°C, 22.1 MPa). These concepts combine the design and operation experience gained from hundreds of water-cooled reactors with the experience from hundreds of fossil-fired power plants operated with supercritical water. The main goals of using supercritical water in nuclear reactors are to increase the efficiency of modern nuclear power plants, decrease capital and operational costs, and finally decrease electrical energy costs. This presentation describes SCWR concepts being pursued in the international community and highlights the technical advancements and challenges in the development.
Presentation made during the webinar
Meet the presenter
Laurence Leung has been working at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (formerly Chalk River Laboratories of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) since 1987 in the field of thermal-hydraulics. He completed his Ph.D. degree at University of Ottawa, Canada, in 1994. Laurence is currently Manager of R&D Facilities Operations and is also responsible for the development of the Canadian Super-Critical Water-cooled Reactor (SCWR) concept. He received 13 awards from AECL (CNL) and external organizations, and delivered short courses on thermal-hydraulics and SCWRs. Laurence is one of Canada’s representatives to the GIF SCWR System, and is the Co-Chair of the System Steering Committee and the Thermal-hydraulics and Safety Project Management Board.