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posted by martyb on Friday September 04 2020, @11:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the Mr...Fission? dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Friday September 04 2020, @02:50PM (2 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday September 04 2020, @02:50PM (#1046329)

    What you describe is an active system. There are failure modes whereby the control rods are not dropped/etc.

    High pressure water reactors have a passive system - if the water gets too hot, the density decreases so that the water becomes a worse moderator and the reaction slows.

    Note this prevents the particular failure mode of "runaway nuclear reaction". Other failure modes, such as a meltdown, may persist; for example, IIRC, the failure at Fukushima was in the spent fuel storage facility, where active cooling was required to prevent the spent fuel getting hot enough to melt (meltdown). The excess heat led to the Hydrogen and Oxygen in cooling water to split and then recombine explosively, while the fuel also melted. This led to uncontrolled release of radioactive material, resulting in mild peril.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 04 2020, @09:20PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 04 2020, @09:20PM (#1046560)

    The other problems at Fukushima were: putting backup generators in a basement that flooded because of a tsunami, and putting the whole site too close to the coast where a tsunami could affect it.

    • (Score: 1) by fakefuck39 on Friday September 04 2020, @09:41PM

      by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday September 04 2020, @09:41PM (#1046564)

      They actually upgraded it to a passive system, which would have prevented the meltdown. They didn't enable it after installation. I'm literally not kidding.