Nuclear fission energy is the low-carbon resource that helps manage the cost of deep decarbonization. Safety is the basis of deploying nuclear power plants near load centers on a large scale. The inherent safety of nuclear reactors depends solely on the laws of nature. The world’s first demonstration plant of a high-temperature reactor with a pebble-bed module (HTR-PM) entered its commercial operation on December 6, 2023. Two safety tests were conducted on the two reactor modules of the HTR-PM plant, each at a power of 200 MWt. During the tests, the active power supply was totally switched off to see if the decay heat can be removed passively. The responses of nuclear power and temperatures within different reactor structures show that the reactors can be cooled down naturally without active intervention. The results of the tests manifest the existence of commercial-scale inherent safety for the first time.

核裂变能源是有助于管理深度脱碳成本的低碳资源。安全是在负荷中心附近大规模部署核电站的基础。核反应堆的固有安全完全取决于自然法则。全球首座球床模块高温反应堆（HTR-PM）示范装置于2023年12月6日投入商业运行。对HTR-PM装置的两个反应堆模块进行了两次安全测试，分别进行了两次安全测试。功率为 200 MWt。测试过程中，主动电源完全关闭，看看能否被动地排除衰变热。不同反应堆结构内核功率和温度的响应表明，反应堆可以自然冷却，无需主动干预。测试结果首次证明了商业规模的本质安全性的存在。