NuScale's small nuclear reactor is first to get US safety approval

[LiberalArkie]

9/1/2020, 12:43 PM


NuScale's reactor-in-a-can.

One hope buoying nuclear energy advocates has been the promise of “small modular reactor” designs. By dividing a nuclear facility into an array of smaller reactors, they can largely be manufactured in a factory and then dropped into place, saving us from having to build a complex, possibly one-of-a-kind behemoth on site. That could be a big deal for nuclear’s persistent financial problems, while also enabling some design features that further improve safety.

On Friday, the first small modular reactor received a design certification from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meaning that it meets safety requirements and could be chosen by future projects seeking licensing and approval.

The design comes from NuScale, a company birthed from research at Oregon State University that has received some substantial Department of Energy funding. It’s a 76-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide steel cylinder (23 meters by 5 meters) capable of producing 50 megawatts of electricity. (The company also has a 60-megawatt iteration teed up.) They envision a plant employing up to 12 of these reactors in a large pool like those used in current nuclear plants.

The basic design is conventional, using uranium fuel rods to heat water in an internal, pressurized loop. That water hands off its high temperature to an external steam loop through a heat exchange coil. Inside the plant, the resulting steam would run to a generating turbine, cool off, and circulate back to the reactors.

Snip

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/first-modular-nuclear-reactor-design-certified-in-the-us/

[uponit7771]

1. K&R for science, why did nuke industry go ginormous for reactors in the first place? tia

[hunter]

3. Motives were similar to the deadlier Space Shuttle debacle.

It was a time when "Bigger is Better!" was a feather in some corporate ego's cap.

There probably won't be anything like the space shuttle again. From now on cargo will be sent up in very big unmanned and somewhat dangerous rockets, while people will ride smaller, much safer, much more conservative rockets into space.

Smaller reactors such as NuScale shut down safely when something goes wrong. They do not require emergency power to keep them stable.

The reactors at Fukushima failed because the emergency diesel generators, fuel tanks, and power systems were damaged or destroyed by the tsunami.

The NuScale reactor design is very conventional and conservative, which is why it gets first approval.

The greater promise of nuclear power is reactors that can utilize uranium that's already been mined or the used fuel from conventional light water reactors that's now considered waste. Conventional light water reactors like NuScale extract only a small fraction of the potential energy in their fuel. Because it's nuclear energy, that's still a lot.

The U.S.A. could probably quit fossil fuel in a decade if we set at it with the same sort of enthusiasm we put into landing men on the moon.

I'm a Luddite and organic gardener myself, but by my calculations the world's current population cannot be supported with low density energy sources such as wind or solar.

I'd support one of these NuScale power plants in my own backyard, replacing the natural gas power plants I can see from my house.

[MissB]

2. Odd story within

My son was flying back from the east coast to home on one of his school holidays (must’ve been last fall). He was working on some coursework on the plane and the guy sitting next to him noticed and struck up a convo by asking him if he was doing (x, which I don’t remember - computational something or other). Turns out the guy used to teach that at Oregon State and now had a small firm working on nuclear reactors.

Bought my kid a drink during their layover and said to contact him if he needed a summer job (which obv didn’t happen because Covid).

That’s this company. Glad to hear they made it through the regulatory process. Nuclear isn’t my kid’s interest but it was one of those fun random conversations you end up in sometimes in life.

[hunter]

4. I had many wonderful chance meetings like that when I was young.

I had lunch with Bob Ballard and dinner with Hans Bethe. Captain Kangaroo held my first child.

Once you choose to open up a bit amazing things happen. The only thing that high school taught me was how to be invisible.

I was in a shit bad mood when Bob Ballard asked if he could sit at my little table in the University Center. I could have said "no" and stared off into the sky, but I didn't.

Little encounters like that changed my life.

[Yeehah]

5. Interesting

I support nuclear power made safe.