Small Reactors Could Kick-Start the Stalled Nuclear Sector

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608271/small-reactors-could-kick-start-the-stalled-nuclear-sector/

Small Reactors Could Kick-Start the Stalled Nuclear Sector

NuScale is on track to build the first commercial small modular reactors in the United States.

by James Temple | July 17, 2017

The nuclear energy industry sees big promise in going small.

Earlier this year, NuScale Energy took a crucial step forward in its prolonged effort to build 12 scaled-down nuclear reactors on an empty parcel at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling research campus on the outskirts of Idaho Falls (see “Shrinking Nuclear”). The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to begin the formal process of reviewing the company’s designs for the 600-megawatt plant, which could power a city the size of Boise twice over.

That gives NuScale, based in Portland, Oregon, the inside track on building the country’s first commercial reactors of this type. Known as small modular reactors, or SMRs, they also represent the first substantially new reactor design of any kind to reach this NRC milestone in decades.

…

NuScale’s inaugural power plant would be owned by the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems and operated by Energy Northwest. If all goes well, it will begin generating electricity in 2026. That, of course, is still nearly a decade off. But the hope is that once the NRC signs off on the reactor designs, and the company establishes its supply chain and third-party manufacturing process, it will become faster and easier to line up customers and roll out reactors. Any given project site, however, will still have to go through additional regulatory permitting.

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[ret5hd]

1. Oh yeah!!! The Ford Nucleon will become reality!

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Probably not

However, just because one unrealistic plan won’t happen, does not mean that this plan won’t either.

FWIW: The Ford Nucleon wasn’t the only nuclear powered concept car:
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/07/17/nuclear-powered-atomic-age-classic-cars/