Companies with boiling-water reactors similar to the ones in Japan include Exelon Corp.
The reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi are called boiling-water reactors (BWRs) and were manufactured by General Electric.
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Seven boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the neighbouring Fukushima Daini plant, both operated by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), shut down on Friday.
There are a number of different reactors in use, most commonly water-cooled pressurised or boiling water reactors - though other reactor types are kept cool with the help of liquid metal, gas or molten salt.
Executives have been pressing officials in China to include GE's advanced boiling-water reactors in their next five-year economic plan (China uses the pressurized reactors championed by perennial GE rival Westinghouse, now part of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.).
Mr Ishizuka acknowledges that the company is taking a risk, though given that Hitachi knows how to build advanced boiling water reactors and that it now owns the land on which to build them, he is firmly optimistic.
Two officials from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission with expertise in boiling water nuclear reactors have deployed to Japan as part of a U.S. International Agency for International Development (USAID) team.
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In 1994, North Korea agreed to stop making plutonium, in return for which America and its allies would supply the country with fuel oil and build two Western-designed light-water nuclear reactors (since it is a bit harder to produce weapons-grade materials from such reactors than from the ones North Korea had been building).
But for now, Japan has "no choice" but to continue pouring water into the reactors, Friedlander said.
Microcyn arose from research done in the 1990s by Japanese physicists looking for a way to disinfect cooling water in nuclear reactors.
Each of the 65-foot-tall, 640-ton generators -- built by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- are packed with thousands of narrow tubes that carry hot, pressurized water from the reactors.
Reports of water cannons and helicopters being used to spray water on overheating nuclear reactors in Japan may have also cooled down tension in markets.
The only thing we do with nuclear reactors is boil water.
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The crippled plant's owner is still trying to manage hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive water used to cool the reactors, and scientists believe some of that is still seeping into the Pacific.
In a normally functioning plant, coolant water is circulated out of the reactors and chilled.
Sea water is being pumped into the reactors by special high pressure fire extinguisher hoses to prevent a nuclear meltdown.
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That system requires tons of water to be pumped into the reactors every day to keep the fuel rods' temperatures down.
By April 6th TEPCO had managed to staunch the leakage of highly contaminated water from one of the damaged reactors that had produced levels of radioactive iodine 7.5m times the legal limit in one sample of seawater.
Much of the past week was dominated by the attempt to stop water laced with massive amounts of radioactive particles from pouring into the Pacific Ocean -- water that comes out of the reactors "screaming with radioactivity, " Friedlander said.
These rods, while not as hot as the ones currently in the reactors, also require cooling water to prevent overheating that could lead to a meltdown.
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The United Arab Emirates is also building nuclear power reactors, four Korean light water rectors, in full transparency and with full support from the international community.
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The government has a target of the end of the year to bring the plant to a cold shutdown, when the reactors are stable and the water inside them is no longer boiling.
Last year, federal regulators blamed heavy tube wear in the generators on a botched computer analysis that they said badly misjudged how water and steam would flow in the reactors, along with manufacturing problems.
We have lots of ways to boil water without the expense and danger of nuclear reactors.
FORBES: Uranium Stocks Looking Ugly Post-Fukushima As Short-Interest Rises
Normally, circulation would channel the hydrogen and oxygen to a recombiner where they would be restored back to water, but in the hours after the reactors were shut down, hydrogen was accumulating and separating in the wetwell and reached a point where it was vented into the sparse steel-frame structure at the top of the reactor building.
FORBES: Explainer: What Caused The Incident At Fukushima-Daiichi
Hitachi's proposed facilities will use its advanced boiling water technology, which is already used in four reactors in Japan.
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