Urenco, Bruce Power and AMEC NSS Limited recently announced that they had signed an MOU to cooperate in the design, licensing and development of Urenco’s U-Battery micro nuclear system for the Canadian electricity and heat market. The U-Battery contains a 10 MWth nuclear heat source that can be configured to produce either 4 MWe plus…
By Jack Devanney Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors have led recent nuclear plant projects into disasters. Deca-billion dollar cost overruns. Schedules doubling. Some projects being cancelled after squandering billions of dollars. Giant corporations facing bankruptcy. This raises the obvious question: if Westinghouse can’t build a standard nuclear power plant, how in the world will a start up like ThorCon…
It’s time to change energy game by adapting the well-proven, flexible and reliable combined cycle to be able to use nuclear fuel. That will match the best available heat conversion system with a low cost, emission-free heat source.
By: Robert Hargraves and Chris Uhlik Introduction This essay responds to an article by Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson et al, 100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World. Their controversial WWS roadmap has several interesting features and benefits. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum energy…
Generation mPower, one of the early leaders in the development of small modular reactors (SMR), has decided to fully terminate its partnership and put the design material that was developed onto a corporate shelf. Though this isn’t specifically good nuclear news, it is an indication that nuclear energy development has many hurdles that it shares…
Yesterday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted NuScale’s 12,000 page design certification application (DCA). That action starts the safety determination process, which is scheduled to take 40 months. Completed on December 31, 2016 and submitted to the NRC on January 12, 2017, NuScale’s certification application has been subjected to a 60 day checklist review designed to…
Three state-owned Indonesian companies, Pertamina, PLN and INUKI, have completed the ThorCon technology pre-feasibility study agreed to in the Memorandum of Understanding with ThorCon International. The ten-month study concluded that the ThorCon molten salt reactor design could deliver safe, cheap, clean energy, could be built now, would be economically viable, and would have the potential…
Senator Carper (D-DE) asked each witness at a March 8 hearing about NEIMA – Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act – to give one suggestion for improving the bill. If asked, my answer would be to include findings that emphasize the importance of U.S. government-owned testing facilities that are capable of supporting the NRC licensing…
If a U.S.-based researcher or reactor designer needs to irradiate fuel or material with fast neutrons for testing, their current options are extremely limited. No domestic test facility can provide enough fast neutrons to do anything more than slowly irradiate a small quantity of tiny samples. Anything more requires the full cooperation of either Russia…
As long-established nuclear system vendors falter under the weight of challenges that often burden mega-projects, a growing herd of start-up companies envision an exciting future in innovative nuclear solutions to the world’s energy trilemma. One of the newest additions in the space is Kairos Power, an Oakland, CA-based start-up that is quietly assembling a team…
Two years ago, NuScale committed to filing a license application for its eponymous SMR design with U.S. regulators by the end of 2016. Just three months before two company executives used a custom pen on the cover letter of the ~12,000 page design certification application, even NuScale insiders were doubtful that the task could be…
Yesterday, Terrestrial Energy USA (TEUSA) informed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that they planned to begin pre-license application discussions with a goal of being ready to file a design certification application no later than Oct 2019. Here is a brief video that provides an overview of Terrestrial Energy‘s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSRTM TEUSA…