Fluid-Uranium Reactor

A fluid-uranium reactor (FUR) was a type of liquid fuel nuclear fission reactor similar to aqueous homogeneous reactors, which were developed by Nevrin nuclear physicists in the 1920s. Unlike AHRs, early FURs had cores exposed to open air, and were extremely hazardous to work around.

One advantage of FURs was their compact design; Nevrin campaigned to install the reactors in buildings during the 20th century, purporting them as a self-sufficient alternative to grid power. Though the company pushed heavily for their adoption, they were unsuccessful due to bad publicity around disasters such as the Harvey & Harris Meltdown, and the majority of produced reactors ended up installed in Nevrin's own scientific facilities.

Operation

Early FURs used a series of open-air nuclear fuel pools with uranium in solution connected by a series of intricate concrete channels. The concentration of the pools was automatically regulated; the concentration of the open-air storage pools was kept low enough to prevent criticality, and fuel injected into the core was concentrated to allow the reaction to take place.

The flow rate through the core was maintained at the optimal speed necessary to burn as much fuel as possible. The core itself was a series of pipes called "channels", around which a cooling water jacket was placed, in order to transport the reaction heat away from the core as steam, similar to that of a heat exchanger. This steam then turned a turbine which produced power.

Once the fuel was reacted, it was diluted again with water and pumped to a spent fuel pool. Early disposal methods involved simply dumping the waste in rivers; after this became regulated, disposal involved drying through evaporation and storing the solid components in drums similar to that of modern nuclear waste disposal.

Disasters

Fluid-uranium reactors were the subject of a number of disasters in the late 20th Century; most prominently the Harvey & Harris Meltdown, which occurred in a skyscraper of the same name in New York City that was equipped with two FURs. A hydrogen explosion caused debris to shoot out from the building, destroying it and contaminating the surrounding area. Cleanup took nearly 30 years, and the incident led to the reactors being banned in the United States, along with a blanket ban on all Nevrin nuclear technology in the country.