Concept of the polish high temperature gas-cooled reactor HTGR-POLA

Through a series of national and international projects (HTR-PL, GEMINI Plus, GOSPOSTRATEG-HTR), the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), & Sacute;wierk, Poland, got involved into design of the small-scale High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) technology. The objective is to replace the existing fossil fueled plants working for chemical and petrochemical industry by the nuclear reactors in order to reduce CO 2 emission in Poland and Europe, in the near future. After a short introduction into the local Polish background and the key elements of HTGR technology such as its inherent safety properties, the basic construction components, and an ability of high temperature process heat production, we present current stage of the concept of the 30 MW t h research reactor HTGR-POLA (POLish Atomic) to be build at the NCBJ site. This research reactor is going to also serve a demonstrator of HTGR/SMR technology for Polish industry. In this paper we present the main points of our design philosophy, the reactor mission, objectives (research, experimental, and utility) as well as the main technical specifications on a conceptual level.