US nuclear regulator greenlights its first small modular reactor

The first small modular reactor (SMR) design has been approved for certification by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). NuScale's tidy reactor design promises safe, clean energy at radically reduced cost, land use and installation time.

The NRC released news last week that its staff have been directed to make a final rule certifying the NuScale reactor design for use in the United States. This is just the seventh design approved by the NRC since it was established in 1974, and the first of a coming wave of technologies designed to make nuclear power cheaper, easier and safer to implement than ever before.

The keys to this small modular reactor's advantages lie in its small size and modularity. Rather than having to build each reactor on site, custom designed for the location, NuScale can mass-manufacture its light water reactor modules in a factory and then ship them worldwide for a relatively quick and painless installation.

Each roughly cylindrical module stands around 65 ft (20 m) high, with a 9-foot (2.7-m) diameter, and produces 77 megawatts by pushing steam out through a turbine. A given power plant could run anywhere between four and 12 of these modules, submerged in a water tank, so an overall power station will be good for between 308 and 924 MW. Nuclear will be a key baseline generator for renewables-based power grids in many areas, and NuScale says its mass production capabilities will make it cost-competitive even with some fossil-fueled options.

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