High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR), which is called as Catastrophe free nuclear reactor with a large local content potential due to the majority of the reactor core structure consists of graphite and concrete. HTGR produces heat (temperature around 900 degrees Celsius) and electricity. HTGR in Hamm Uentrop Germany is the first commercial plant in the world.
Pebble bed HTR (High Temperature Reactor) was born from a concept developed by Prof. Schulten. He was the director of the Institute for Reactor Development at the Juelich Nuclear Research Center Germany. At present the name of the Center becomes Forschungszentrum Juelich. The concept was realized in the form of an experimental nuclear power plant that produced 25 MWe of electric power and was named AVR (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor) at the Juelich Nuclear Research Center.
AVR was designed, built and commissioned by BBC / HRB. The AVR commissioning was conducted on August 26, 1966 and the operation was stopped on December 1, 1988 with a total power of 1.7 TWh.
Furthermore, based on the experience gained from experiments at AVR, BBC / HRB built a Thorium high-temperature reactor at Hamm-Uentrop in Germany that can produce electrical power of 308 MWe. The nuclear power plant is named THTR 300 (Thorium High Temperature Reactor). Thorium was used to reduce the use of Uranium. Commissioning was carried out on September 13, 1983. The operation was stopped on September 29, 1988.
Because of political policy in Germany, the development of the HTR nuclear power plant was stopped.
Based on experience in the development of pebble beds HTR in Germany, HTR-10 was built with 10 MW thermal power in Tsin Hua University China. The experimental HTR is used for the development of pebble bed HTR technology in China, such as fuel testing and development, verification of the pebble bed HTR safety features, demonstration of electricity production and co-generation heat, and exploring experience in pebble bed HTR design, operation and construction.
Therefore, in collaboration to develop pebble bed HTR, research institutions in Indonesia need to consider not to take a country, which has not intensively developed the pebble bed HTR, as a main partner in the design. It should also be noted that companies that have experiences in designing, building and carrying out commissioning pebble bed HTR were BBC and HRB consortia, while for pebble bed HTR fuel manufacturing was NUKEM.