Small reactor
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https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/first-modular-nuclear-reactor-design-certified-in-the-us/
Link to videoOn 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.
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@Loki said in Small reactor:
What does 50 megawatts power? Seems like a reasonable initial thought doesn’t it?
https://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_homes_can_a_megawatt_power
An average U.S. household uses about 10,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year. A watt is a unit of power, or energy per unit time, so it's the rate at which energy is being used. A kilowatt-hour (or 1000 watt-hours) is a unit of energy, so 10,000 kWh is how much total energy each household uses over the course of a year.
This means that each household, on average, uses energy at a rate of about 1 kilowatt (1000 watts, which equal to ten 100-watt light bulbs).
One megawatt is equal to one million watts, so for one instant, one megawatt can power 1000 homes.
A better question to ask is how many homes can a megawatt-hour (MWh) provide with energy for one hour? If one home needs 1 kWh of energy for one hour, then 1 MWh of energy can sustain 1000 homes for one hour.
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Dont we already have this in submarines?
From Wiki
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a typical marine propulsion reactor produces no more than a few hundred megawatts.
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I'd need an energy source that produces 1.21 jigawatts. Any ideas?
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@Klaus said in Small reactor:
I'd need an energy source that produces 1.21 jigawatts. Any ideas?
We need a clock tower that needs saving.
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A company racing to be among the first to operate a small nuclear reactor in the United States received a vote of confidence from the federal government Friday after encountering recent roadblocks.
The Energy Department approved a $1.4 billion grant to help defray costs for a group of utilities that are the first in line to buy power from the reactors produced by NuScale Power.
The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a group of small, community-owned utilities in six Western states, had previously indicated the group might pull out of the NuScale project unless it received the extra funding from the government.
“It is entirely appropriate for DOE to help de-risk this first-of-a-kind, next generation nuclear project,” said Douglas Hunter, UAMPS CEO and general manager, announcing DOE’s approval of the grant. “This is a great example of a partnership with DOE to lower the cost of introduction of transformative advanced nuclear technology that will provide affordable, carbon-free electricity all over the country and the world.”
The award, to be spread out over 10 years, is still subject to appropriations by Congress. That could be manageable given that bipartisan majorities have supported NuScale over the years for its potential to prove the viability of small reactors, an emissions-free technology of a type that has never been deployed and expected to be safer and cheaper than traditional large nuclear projects that have struggled economically.
The Energy Department is already a collaborative partner on the UAMPS project. The department has invested more than $300 million into NuScale since 2014, spanning the Obama and Trump administrations.
It has signed on to buy power from two of the 12 reactors, which are being built at the Energy Department's Idaho National Laboratory.
