Design principles, targets and criteria for a multipurpose advanced reactor inherently safe (MARS)

To be accepted and to be, sooner or later, extensively utilized, a new technology must respect the nature and its equilibria. For a nuclear power plant, the full respect of nature and of its equilibria means: for normal operation of the plant, guaranteeing a radiological impact comparable to the standard deviation of the radioactive natural background, for worst design plant accidents, guaranteeing an external impact only with the same probability as that of ultra-catastrophic natural events, such as bolide impacts to the earth. In compliance with Prof. A. Weinberg's suggestions, the design of the MARS nuclear plant was conceived according to this philosophy. (author)