#small-modular-reactors

#small-modular-reactors

The Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public, according to documents obtained exclusively by NPR. The sweeping changes were made to accelerate development of a new generation of nuclear reactor designs. They occurred over the fall and winter at the Department of Energy, which is currently overseeing a program to build

The company expects to break ground on an SMR manufacturing plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee next year. "This funding enables us to build our factory and keep to our DOME schedule, where we will achieve a self-sustained chain reaction on a reactor designed by, built by, fueled by, and operated by Radiant alongside our partners at the Idaho National Lab," Radiant CEO Doug Bernauer said in a canned statement.

"For the first half a decade that I was telling people I was doing nuclear, I had to convince them, 'Hey, here's why nuclear is important,'" Bret Kugelmass, founder and CEO of Last Energy, told TechCrunch. "Now everyone just comes to us saying, 'Oh yeah, of course nuclear is a key part of the solution.' I'm like, okay, great, I'm glad everyone's caught up now."

The agreements were apparently negotiated during President Trump's trip to Japan. An announcement of those agreements indicates that "Japan and various Japanese companies" would invest "up to" $332 billion for energy infrastructure. This specifically mentioned Westinghouse, GE Vernova, and Hitachi. This promises the construction of both large AP1000 reactors and small modular nuclear reactors. The announcement then goes on to indicate that many other companies would also get a slice of that "up to $332 billion," many for basic grid infrastructure.

The federal agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. nuclear stockpile has begun furloughing employees as part of the ongoing federal government shutdown, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday. In a visit to Nevada, Wright said the National Nuclear Security Administration is furloughing 1,400 federal workers as part of the shutdown, which began Oct. 1. Nearly 400 federal workers will remain on the job, along with thousands of NNSA contractors, the Energy Department said.

Last fall, the house of Bezos announced a $500 million investment in SMR startup X-Energy. On Thursday, the e-tailer revealed that X-Energy's Xe-100 SMR designs would eventually supply Washington State with "up to" 960 megawatts of clean energy. "Eventually" is the key word here as construction isn't expected to start until the end of the decade and the plants won't begin operations until sometime in the 2030s.

In May, Ford gave Ontario Power Generation the green light to start construction on the first of four small modular reactors next door to the Darlington station in Clarington, Ont., east of Toronto. The project is called the Darlington New Nuclear Project. 'With President Trump taking direct aim at Canada's economy, it's never been more important to build and build fast,' Ford said in a statement on Thursday 'Shovels are already in the ground building the first small modular nuclear reactors in the G7 at Darlington. Ontario welcomes the federal government's support and expects that the same streamlined federal approvals will be extended to the new large-scale nuclear facilities Ontario is building.'