On Jun 7, 3:49*pm, dpb wrote:
*I'd have to look up CANDU but I don't
think it's power density rates any higher than that of conventional
LWRs; it's advantage is low-enrichment cost and the continuous refueling
facility.

CANDU's are fuelled on the fly, but initial capital cost is very high.
Ontario Power Generation is now considering a LWR.
A lot of people I know/knew has worked or now works for OPG. Their
scrapping the SuperCritical plans had everything to do with the cost
of plumbing. None of those to be found in this network. Mind you,
those studies were done in the 30's. 12" walled pipe? Prolly not. But
thick and expensive nonetheless.

So, the supercritical boiler is alive and well... *(At least outside
the US where progress hasn't had the plug pulled, anyway....)

Our biggest generators are 850's and that's already a bit of a pain in
the ass when taking spinning reserve into account. Everybody was
always happy to see Big Alice come on line....not.

Speaking spinning reserve... I always thought that super tankers
should have at least 30% of empty tanks on board... a set of big
transfer pumps and presto... spring a leak, dump the leaking tank into
an empty one.