Ontario's Nuclear Choice - GE Boiling Water Reactor

The BWR, or to spiff it up, the ABWR (for 'advanced') appears to be the poor sister of the choices, perhaps just included as the life of the party. The bwr ditches the use of steam generators, and puts everything into a fantastically complex core. The Japanese used to like them, until the last big earthquake, and now they appear to be dumping them. The problem is that the core is such a big, complex mess, it is impossible to assess for earthquake ruggedness, and impossible to assure no damage, after a big quake.

The control rods are shoved up from underneath, which seems rather silly, and you can notice the vast array of steam dryers on top. The steam goes directly to the turbines, which makes for some radioactivity in the turbine hall. As such, the building is complex.


This is a generally terrible design, that would not be good for airliner strike. The footprint appears to be the same as for the AP1000, so there is still the problem of fitting it on the Darlington site.

Of course, they are now offering the 'super advanced' bwr, but I can't find anything on that. I would assess this as a loser design that I would not want to see in Ontario, but again, I'm not part of the Spritzer parties.