TidalCore-5 referencedesign sheet.
All values are conceptual-study order-of-magnitude estimates intended to anchor discussion. They are not derived from a Preliminary Safety Analysis Report and should not be cited as design commitments.
Configure the reference design.
Scrub the four primary design knobs. Derived thermal, fuel, and commercial values recalculate live from first-order correlations (not a safety-graded model).
Derived parameters
calculatedA first-principles algebraic model. Adjust the four parameters and see how electricity, process heat, ammonia production, and displaced CO₂ scale. Not a substitute for a plant-level simulation.
Default = electric-priority reference case. Diverting heat to process loads reduces electric output (e.g. 40% heat → ~3.0 MWe + 6.0 MWth).
Hardware status — No TidalCore reactor hardware has been built, fuelled, or tested. 15 MWth, ~850 °C, and every other parameter published here are concept targets and study assumptions from reduced-order models, pending independent validation.
TidalCore is an independent concept-stage development study. It is not a licensed reactor design, no application has been submitted to the U.S. NRC, and no approval, review, or endorsement by the NRC, DOE, USCG, IMO, MARAD, any national laboratory, port, or utility is claimed or implied. All figures are modeled design targets subject to independent validation.
Berth shore-power demand calculator
Pick a berth mix to estimate simultaneous shore-power peak, the gap above your available substation headroom, and how many concept modules (~5 MWe each, target) would cover it.
Screening estimate only. Assumes all selected berths draw peak at once, average load 60% of peak, and 0.7 t CO₂/MWh for auxiliary diesel. Vessel demands are generic assumptions, not data for any port.
What a port operator would ask first.
| Module footprint | ~180 m² per module (study assumption) Excludes switchgear, security buildings and laydown. |
|---|---|
| Security & controlled area | To be set by site-specific analysis Standoff and exclusion distances are an open licensing question under Part 53 and NRC security rules — not assumed here. |
| Siting options | Quay-side (on land) or barge-mounted Barge option would need adequate berth water depth and mooring; depth is port-specific. |
| Grid connection | Port MV substation, 6.6 kV / 11 kV class Typical shore-power voltages; exact interface depends on the host port. |
| Crane & berth clearance | Sited outside crane rail and berth operating envelope Placement is a planning assumption to avoid disrupting cargo operations. |
| Natural hazards | Seismic, flooding, storm surge and tsunami screening required No site has been characterised; design-basis hazards are unknown. |
All entries are concept-stage planning assumptions, not a licensed design basis.
Power
01 / 06- Thermal output
- 15 MWth
- Net electric output
- 5 MWe at site reference
- Process heat takeoff
- 0 MWth (electric-priority); cogeneration option ~6 MWth with ~3 MWe net
- Cycle efficiency
- ~35.5% gross / ~33.4% net after house loads (sCO₂ Brayton)
- Gross electric output
- ~5.3 MWe (house load ~6%)
- Load-following range
- 30 – 100% in 5 min/decade
Core & fuel
02 / 06- Fuel form
- HALEU TRISO in graphite pebble compact
- Enrichment
- 19.75% U-235
- Core inventory
- ~599 kg HM
- Target cycle length
- 12 years between cassette swaps (design target)
- Burnup target
- > 120 GWd/MTU
- Moderator
- graphite monolith
- Primary heat transport
- Na heat-pipe array, ~140 pipes
- Reactivity control
- 12 perimeter B₄C drums + central shutdown rod
Power conversion
03 / 06- Cycle
- recompression supercritical CO₂ Brayton
- Turbine inlet
- 650 °C / 25 MPa
- Generator
- permanent-magnet, 6.0 MVA
- Heat rejection
- dry air finned cooler (no marine cooling-water intake)
Mechanical & siting
04 / 06- Estimated reactor module mass
- ~123 t (concept estimate)
- Reactor vessel envelope
- Ø 2.4 m × 4.1 m
- Plant footprint (full vault)
- ≈ 30 × 18 m
- Concrete shield wall
- 1.4 m belowgrade vault
- Target Emergency Planning Zone
- ~120 m modeled (Part 53 dose-based; not reviewed by NRC)
- Site preparation
- Class-A pile-supported concrete pad, 18 months
Safety
05 / 06- Loss-of-coolant pathway
- Sealed solid-state primary loop is designed to eliminate the classical LOCA initiator; unverified
- Decay heat sink
- passive radiative + natural convection to vault
- Modeled peak accident core temp
- < 1450 °C modeled (TRISO tested to 1600 °C in DOE AGR programs)
- Modeled operator action time
- no intervention required in modeled cases; pending safety analysis
- Proposed source-term approach
- Functional Containment argument mapped to RG 1.232
Commercial
06 / 06- Target overnight CAPEX (NOAK)
- $11.1 k / kWe
- Target LCOE (electric only)
- $84 / MWh
- Target LCOH (process heat)
- $32 / MWhth
- Modeled NH₃ delivered cost
- ~$537 / t (illustrative model output)
- Plant operating life
- 60 years vessel; 5 × 12-yr cassettes
Glossary
- Burn-up
- The total energy extracted from a given mass of nuclear fuel, usually expressed in gigawatt-days per metric tonne of uranium (GWd/MTU). Higher burn-up means more energy per fuel load and fewer cassette swaps over plant life.
- Capacity factor
- The ratio of actual electricity produced over a period to the maximum possible output. Baseload nuclear plants routinely exceed 90%, versus ~30–40% for wind or solar without storage.
- Control drumsB₄C absorber drums
- Rotating cylinders lined with neutron-absorbing boron carbide placed at the core perimeter. Turning them toward or away from the core adjusts reactivity and power level without moving fuel.
- Decay heat
- Residual heat produced by radioactive fission products after the reactor shuts down. It is typically a few percent of full power immediately after shutdown and must be removed passively for safety.
- Emergency Planning ZoneEPZ
- The area around a reactor for which off-site emergency response plans are required. Under risk-informed Part 53 siting, small sealed reactors may be able to justify a sub-kilometer EPZ based on dose analysis, subject to NRC review.
- Effective multiplication factork-eff
- The ratio of neutrons produced in one generation to those lost in the next. k-eff = 1.0 means critical steady-state power; below 1.0 the chain reaction dies away; above 1.0 it grows.
- Functional Containment
- A NRC Part 53 safety objective that limits radiological release through physical barriers and inherent fuel performance rather than a large reinforced containment dome. TRISO fuel is a candidate because testing indicates each particle retains fission products up to ~1600 °C; qualification is design-specific.
- HALEUHigh-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium
- Uranium enriched between 5% and 19.75% U-235. HALEU enables smaller, longer-lived cores than conventional 3–5% LEU fuel, while remaining below the 20% weapons-grade threshold.
- Heat pipe
- A sealed, passive two-phase heat-transfer device. Liquid sodium evaporates at the hot core end, travels as vapor to a cooler condenser, and returns by capillary wick action — no pumps, valves, or moving parts.
- Levelized Cost of ElectricityLCOE
- The average revenue per unit of electricity needed to recover all lifetime costs (capital, fuel, operations, decommissioning) over the project life. Useful for comparing generation technologies.
- Neutron flux
- The density of neutrons passing through the core per unit area and time. Higher flux generally means higher power density, and the home-page reactor visual uses it only as an illustrative animation driver.
- Pre-Application ReviewNRC pre-app
- An optional, fee-free early engagement with the NRC before a formal license application. It produces guidance on regulatory framework, topical reports, and data needed, sharply reducing later review risk.
- sCO₂ Brayton cyclesupercritical CO₂
- A compact power-conversion cycle using carbon dioxide above its critical pressure and temperature. It is smaller and more efficient than steam turbines at the temperatures heat-pipe reactors deliver.
- Sealed cassette
- The entire replaceable fuel block of a microreactor. It arrives factory-sealed, runs for its design cycle, and is returned intact for reprocessing or storage — eliminating on-site refueling and handling.
- TRISOTri-structural isotropic
- A particle fuel design with a uranium kernel coated by dense carbon and silicon carbide layers. Each particle is its own pressure vessel and fission-product barrier, retaining gases up to ~1600 °C.
Frequently asked questions
No — this site is a conceptual design study. It is not a Preliminary Safety Analysis Report or a design certification. The specifications are order-of-magnitude estimates intended to anchor investor, regulator, and partner discussions. A real license application would require years of engineering, testing, and NRC review.
k-eff is the most fundamental reactor physics variable: it tells you whether the chain reaction is steady, growing, or shrinking. Power output is a downstream consequence of k-eff, fuel loading, and cooling. Showing k-eff first keeps the design language grounded in physics.
Higher burn-up means each fuel cassette produces more energy before it must be replaced. That lowers fuel cost per megawatt-hour and reduces the number of transport/swaps over a 60-year plant life. It also influences waste composition and disposal planning.
Heat pipes operate entirely by passive phase change and capillary return. If the core heats up, the vapor space pressure rises and natural convection increases; if it cools, boiling slows. There are no pumps to fail, no large primary coolant loops, and no loss-of-coolant accident pathway in the sealed cassette.
HALEU enrichment up to 19.75% allows a much smaller core inventory and longer cycle lengths than 3–5% LEU. For a microreactor, that translates to a smaller vessel, lower transport mass, and a sealed cassette that can run for years without refueling. It remains below the 20% threshold that defines high-enriched uranium in non-proliferation regimes.
Yes, with caveats. The interactive configurator lets you stress-test sensitivities across plausible ranges, but every quoted number should be labeled as a conceptual-study estimate. Use ranges, not single points, and be ready to explain the engineering judgment behind them.
MWth is thermal power from the core; MWe is the net electrical power delivered after the power-conversion cycle and parasitic loads. The ratio MWe/MWth is the plant efficiency. For TidalCore-5, a sCO₂ Brayton cycle at ~850 °C outlet yields roughly 33% net electric efficiency.