
NuScale’s small nuclear reactor is first to get US safety approval - jseliger
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/first-modular-nuclear-reactor-design-certified-in-the-us/
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guerby
From the press release

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200828005299/en/](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200828005299/en/)

"NuScale spent over $500 million, with the backing of Fluor, and over 2
million labor hours to develop the information needed to prepare its DCA
application"

Not cheap :)

On scaling down reactors to micro size (nuscale is kind of larger) and costs:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gtog_gOaGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gtog_gOaGQ)

$0.25/kWh until large series (17mn30s).

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njarboe
This certification is great news. I wonder how much sooner one of these small
reactor designs would have come to market if there was $50 million dollars of
paperwork needed in instead of $1/2 billion.

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atrus
2 million pages of additional requested documentation? What would all of that
possibly contain?

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jimmySixDOF
The Skunk Works people have been on about a fusion substation you could 'fit
on the back of a truck' for years now and they are still working on it you
gotta love those kind of high risk high reward R&D budgets

>Lockheed Martin says that the CFR design could eventually be small enough to
fit inside a shipping container, but still be able to power a Nimitz class
aircraft carrier or up to 80,000 homes

[1] [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29074/skunk-works-
exot...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29074/skunk-works-exotic-
fusion-reactor-program-moves-forward-with-larger-more-powerful-design)

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daly
Who do I have to marry to get one of these planted nearby?

