Pebble Bed Nuclear, buyer beware.

German scientists developed a new "safer" design for nuclear reactors in the 60s. Although addresses some of the problems of water reactors by eliminating the Chernobyl style meltdown, it still has big hurdles to overcome. Researcher in Freiburg Germany had a radiation releaase in the 80s when some of the pebbles broke apart after getting stuck. The Germans tried to hide behind the Chernobyl fallout, however when officials figured out that the fallout was from a different source, the government pulled funding. Problems with Pebble Bed

Problems
1 - No Containment, each of the 400,000 pebbles is the last defense.
2 - No plan for pebbles catching fire.
3 - Small design is good but how do you secure hundreds of small sites?
4 - Lower power output compared with water reactors makes them less attractive.
5 - Excelon pulled funding after concluding project was too risky despite support from the White House.
Three Mile Island alert