u/songsofadistantsun

I'll admit that I only know so much about the nuts and bolts of how this all works so far, but I read a bit into Cravens' and Gregory's books and was pleased to have my prior misconceptions fall away. For instance, I now know how the CANDU works and how it doesn't require any uranium enrichment, as well as how Chernobyl's design has some inherent risk of such an explosion and meltdown while others don't.

But anyways - my ideal fission reactor would:

1. Use either natural uranium or nuclear waste, to avoid having to spend lots of energy on enrichment (and the proliferation risk that raises)
2. Have as close to zero risk of meltdown as is possible, inherent in the design
3. Produce as small an amount of long-lived waste isotopes as is possible
4. Produce as small an amount of waste heat as is possible, and
5. Use as little water as possible in all cycles, since many places are bound to get more water scarce as climate change ramps up

Google tells me this would be a heavy water-moderated MSR; is that correct? Or can I not have all five items in a fission reactor within the laws of physics?