Article

2020-09-03 Science & Technology

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

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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-09-03 08:50|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 not that small

weighs 700 tons and even if it is segmented into three pieces, that's three big loads

Posted by lord garth 2020-09-03 11:13|| 2020-09-03 11:13|| Front Page Top

#2 ^Compared to what we've today

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-09-03 11:15|| 2020-09-03 11:15|| Front Page Top

#3 The pressurized internal loop is arranged so that it allows hot water to ~~rise~~ sink through the heat exchange coils and ~~sink~~ rise back ~~down toward~~ up through the fuel rods after it cools.

FIFY Couldn't let that obvious error go!

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839 2020-09-03 11:19|| 2020-09-03 11:19|| Front Page Top

#4 Gen4 Energy out of Denver would have had a nice small 25mW unit too, had the former administration (whose name must NEVER be denigrated) not cut them off and given the funding to Bill Gates and X-energy.

Imagine that.....

Posted by Mullah Richard 2020-09-03 11:29|| 2020-09-03 11:29|| Front Page Top

#5 SMR Inventec has a similar pressurized water reactor (PWR), bigger than the NuScale unit, that puts out 160-MW.

It's not a 'miniature', it's about the height of a small municipal water tower and takes up around 4-1/2 acres.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2020-09-03 11:35|| 2020-09-03 11:35|| Front Page Top

#6 Big takeaway for all of these new designs is that they are "Fail-safe", they require active measures to maintain a reaction environment, the moment that anything fails the reactor shuts down. instead of running away like Fukushima or Chernobyl.

What about the truly small (on a reactor scale) molten salt reactors? Until Obama killed the nukes with "renewable" garbage and cronyism, thos appeared to have a lot of promise for safe local power generation, cutting down on grid vulnerability and the need for massive (and wasteful) long transmission lines.

Posted by Theager Borgia1057 2020-09-03 12:43|| 2020-09-03 12:43|| Front Page Top

#7 The industry has it self to blame for a lot of it. Always pushed bigger is better and every design custom leading to numerous over runs in budgets. That hasn't worked for decades now. Looks like someone is taking that to heart.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-09-03 13:50|| 2020-09-03 13:50|| Front Page Top

#8 The first time I saw a "death by a Thousand Legal Cuts" was a proposed reactor in eastern Oklahoma that was cancelled in 1982 after over nine years of studies, studies and more studies. (Oklahomans prevent completion of Black Fox Nuclear Plant, 1973-1982)

Posted by magpie 2020-09-03 14:36|| 2020-09-03 14:36|| Front Page Top

#9 It’s a 76-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide steel cylinder

Seems familiar...

Posted by Skidmark 2020-09-03 15:47|| 2020-09-03 15:47|| Front Page Top

#10 Thats pretty corny Skid.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-09-03 17:42|| 2020-09-03 17:42|| Front Page Top

#11 Nice double entendre!

Posted by Clem 2020-09-03 18:09|| 2020-09-03 18:09|| Front Page Top

#12 It’s a 76-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide steel cylinder

SpaceX has been "hopping" those down in Boca Chica.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2020-09-03 22:44|| 2020-09-03 22:44|| Front Page Top

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