Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to come up with innovative designs for nuclear power generating plants. Much of this money came from private investors who see "green" energy (no carbon emissions) as important to the growing global need for power.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) partners with these investors to fund research.
One company working on their own design (a light water reactor) is NuScale in Oregon. About the size of two school buses vertically stacked, one hundred of them could fit in the containment chamber of a large conventional reactor.
One of the new safety features is that it can stand in an underground pool of water. If the reactor leaks, heat is slowly diffused into the water.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, understandably, has to approve it. NuScale submitted a long 12,000-page application which is still under review by the Commission. But the good news is that NuScale might start supplying power to western states by 2026.
Small new reactors like this might be the only chance nuclear power generation can survive.
(from Wired)
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