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For the first time, U.S. officials have approved a small nuclear power plant design.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission [(NRC)] on Friday approved Portland-based NuScale Power's application for the small modular reactor that Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems plans to build at a U.S. Department of Energy site in eastern Idaho.
The small reactors can produce about 60 megawatts of energy, or enough to power more than 50,000 homes. The proposed project includes 12 small modular reactors. The first would be built in 2029, with the rest in 2030.
NuScale says the reactors have advanced safety features, including self-cooling and automatic shutdown.
"This is a significant milestone not only for NuScale, but also for the entire U.S. nuclear sector and the other advanced nuclear technologies that will follow," said NuScale Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Hopkins in a statement.
The cooperative pushing the effort will next need to submit an application to the NRC for a combined construction and operating license and expects this to be ready within two years.
Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 04 2020, @05:01PM (6 children)
60 megawatts is probably a sweet spot for distribution and redundancy - each one can serve 50,000 homes, so install one per 40,000 homes and let the distribution grid handle downtime-outages, but still avoid the need for long distance distribution lines.
Also: you know they're going to require 24x7x366 live onsite security personnel, they don't scale down very well.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 04 2020, @05:18PM (5 children)
Yeah, the fear factor is a big barricade to progress. Just put one of those Amazon doorbell cams on the gate and feed the video to the cop station
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 04 2020, @08:14PM (4 children)
We were building a radiotherapy system for cancer treatment, and had good reason to want to use Cobalt60, but the DOE gets skittish about letting mere hospitals have isotopes like that which might be used to build a dirty bomb...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 04 2020, @09:08PM
Yeah, I see their point. I would much rather die from a clean bomb
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Saturday September 05 2020, @05:15AM (2 children)
If you ban isotopes only the bad guys will have isotopes!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 05 2020, @12:01PM (1 child)
I think it was in Colombia where a hospital threw away some Co60 and kids found it in the dump - it makes a cool blue glow...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2020, @12:49PM
brazil, and it wasn't the kids who discovered the substance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident [wikipedia.org]
but the spirit of what you're saying is true (and technically one child was given some of the dangerous substance to play with precisely because it had a nice glow).