Safety evaluation of a subsea nuclear electrical power plant

The safety aspects of a nuclear plant employed for subsea electrical power generation are identified and examined. It is apparent that such a sensitive operational environment as the seabed demands an inherently failsafe, highly reliable, and environmental innocuous reactor system. These demand make the direct Brayton cycle, gas turbine, high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR-GT) a promising candidate. The major equipment components of an HTGR-GT subsea nuclear plant include the reactor core, filters, turbine-generator-compressor set, recuperator, cooler, and secondary containment structure. Each of these components must be evaluated for safety, reliability, and remote, no-maintenance, failsafe operation. For any critical plant component malfunction or accident, failsafe operation requires that: (1) the reactor will shut down if necessary with no external action; (2) there will be on unacceptable release of radioactivity to the environment; (3) the plant can be safely recovered from the seabed and repaired or decommissioned