
Nuclear Commission Approves a Safety Aspect of NuScale Power’s Advanced Reactor - jseliger
http://www.powermag.com/press-releases/u-s-nuclear-regulatory-commission-approves-key-safety-aspect-to-nuscale-powers-advanced-reactor-design/
======
gene-h
The headline is misleading, they haven't approved the design yet. However,
they've been able to certify that the reactor does not need a certain standard
of backup power supply and electrical circuitry due to the passive safety
features of the design. This standard essentially requires that nuclear power
plants have a connection to the grid and an on site backup generator to safety
systems that are on completely separate circuits from the nuclear power plant
electrical generation systems.

Not having to do this makes it cheaper for NuScale to deploy powerplants. And
it also makes it easier for them to build powerplants in remote places where a
connection to the electrical grid is not available[0].

[0][https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1616/ML16169A148.pdf](https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1616/ML16169A148.pdf)

~~~
dang
Thanks, we've revised the headline to use less misleading language from the
article.

Edit: submitted title was "U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Approves NuScale
Power’s Advanced Reactor".

~~~
Klathmon
When you do this would it be possible to include the old headline in your
comment?

Without it comments like the GP are harder to understand what exactly they are
speaking to.

~~~
stordoff
FWIW, you can often find this by going to the Google cached version of this
page (in this case: "U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Approves NuScale
Power’s Advanced Reactor"), though I agree, it would be useful to include.

------
jdonaldson
Nuclear power buffs should be pleased. This is the first positive step forward
for nuclear power for as long as I can remember.

50MW of power is powering roughly 50K homes for a year. It'll probably be for
industrial usage at first, but either way it will take pressure off the power
grid, and probably make the grid more resilient to boot.

It's difficult to imagine a catastrophic failure scenario for these since they
don't require mechanical pumps. But, I'm guessing there's some industry folks
here that have more of a nuanced read on this.

(edit: yay Oregon!)

~~~
fmihaila
> 50MW of power is powering roughly 50K homes for a year.

This may seem pedantic, but the relevant measure is power when speaking of
generators, like this reactor, and energy (in addition to power) when talking
about storage, like say, the Tesla battery in Australia. So "...powering
roughly 50K homes for a year" could just as well be for a second, a week, or a
decade. Indicating a time interval is not meaningful in this context.

Power is the rate of energy consumption/generation (think water flow rate at
the faucet), while energy is the total amount stored or consumed (how much you
have in the bathtub). Mixing up power (W) with energy (Wh) is unfortunately a
pervasive mistake in the media, too; we should strive to avoid it, lest we
contribute to the confusion.

(Also, 1kW per house is probably too little; somewhere around 3kW is probably
closer to reality.)

~~~
maxerickson
Average draw in the US is ~1200 watts.

[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3)

Canada is similar and then most other places are ½ or less.

~~~
fmihaila
> Average draw in the US is ~1200 watts.

Peak draw is more relevant, though, than average draw. My point was that in a
hypothetical town with a single 50MW generator you cannot sustain 50k
households, due to daily peak usage exceeding the average by a significant
factor.

Edit: on reading your reply, you're right.

~~~
Reason077
As energy storage becomes more prevalent in the coming years, peak load
becomes less relavent.

Once you add storage, you really _can_ supply 50k households (consuming an
average 24kWh per day) from a 50MW supply.

~~~
DennisP
But then you have to ask which is more expensive, the storage or the excess
capacity.

------
CryoLogic
50MW per reactor at 12 per plant is 600MW. Or 600k homes powered by a single
power plant. Nuclear is now very safe, and cleaner than coal. I am glad this
project is moving forwards.

EDIT: Opportunities for more skilled jobs is always a plus too.

~~~
Angostura
How is the long-term waste handled?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Given it’s not pumped into the atmosphere to be finely dispersed globally and
stored in our childrens’ bones and lungs, almost any solution beats the
_status quo_.

~~~
Retric
That's already changing very rapidly. "World coal production fell by 6.2%, or
231 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) in 2016"

What changed is both solar and wind cost less than coal. So, coal is being
fazed out about as fast as alternatives come online. Give it another 10 years
and the landscape will look very different.

~~~
acidburnNSA
The majority of coal displacement in the US has been natural gas which is
cleaner from a lung disease perspective but just as bad for climate change.

~~~
alkonaut
Actually LNG is 30% less CO2 per unit of energy which isn't revolutionary but
it's not a tiny difference either. If a lot of things that currently burn
other hydrocarbons (such as ships) would instead burn LNG we could cut
emissions quite a bit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas#Environm...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas#Environmental_concerns)

~~~
acidburnNSA
But then you have to account for methane leaks from pipelines and account for
the fact that methane has 60x more warming power than co2 and they end up
being basically a wash. Consider the error bars in, i.e.
[https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-
content/uploads/ipcc-...](https://partofthething.com/thoughts/wp-
content/uploads/ipcc-co2-of-fuels.png)

Data from [https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-
report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a...](https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-
report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf)

------
twotwotwo
There's a lot more about the design from the company in
[https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2013...](https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2013/2013-09-02-09-04-TM-
NPTD/20_usa_colbert_nuscale.pdf)

------
Animats
Not bad. I do worry about the containment vessel not being much bigger than
the reactor. That was part of the problem at Fukishima. When the reactor
overheated and turned the cooling water to steam, the pressures were too high
and the containment was breached.

Three Mile Island had a big containment vessel, and when they had a partial
meltdown, the containment held.

~~~
baobrien
I think the whole idea with NuScale reactors is that if you take away external
power and scram the reactor, there's enough water in the pool to handle the
decay heat. After the water boils away, the decay heat is supposed to be small
enough that passive air cooling will keep it safe.

------
devdj
Is there any indication of how long it would operate before needing refuelling
or decommissioning?

~~~
Zaak
According to [http://www.nuscalepower.com/our-technology/technology-
overvi...](http://www.nuscalepower.com/our-technology/technology-overview) it
would have a refueling cycle of 24 months. I didn't see anything about the
expected lifetime of their reactors.

------
humanfromearth
How much does it cost? Who can buy them?

~~~
dmichulke
From wikipedia:

 _The company estimates a twelve-unit NuScale plant would cost $5,000 per
kilowatt. In comparison, the Energy Information Administration in 2011
estimated costs to be $4,700 per kilowatt for conventional nuclear power,
$4,600 for a carbon sequestration coal plant and $931 at a gas-fired plant or
in excess of $1,800 for a gas-fired plant with carbon sequestration._

12 unit = 600kW => 3bn$

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power)

Re "Who can buy them?" \- if you have the 3bn, you will probably be able to
afford whatever license you need to buy that thing.

