NuScale Has Design Certified and Hopes to Build 80GW of Nuclear by 2042

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has completed the Design Certification Application (DCA) review for NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR).

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. The company also submitted 14 separate Topical Reports in addition to the over 12,000 pages for its DCA application and provided more than 2 million pages of supporting information for NRC audits.

The NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) design is a fully factory-fabricated NuScale Power Module™ capable of generating 60 MW of electricity. It uses a safer, smaller, and scalable version of pressurized water reactor technology. NuScale’s scalable design—a power plant can house up to 12 individual power modules.

By 2030, a NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) power plant will become part of the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), an initiative spearheaded by the public power consortium Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS). The First module is expected to be operational by mid-2029, with the remaining 11 modules to come online for full plant operation by 2030.

NuScale expects to sell between 674 to 1,682 reactors between 2023 and 2042. If 1682 reactors are built this would nearly double the nuclear power in the US from 98 GW to 178 GW.

SOURCES – NuScale, Scientific American, Science Journal
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

23 thoughts on “NuScale Has Design Certified and Hopes to Build 80GW of Nuclear by 2042”

  1. Common misconception on the part of statists: Somalia doesn't have no government, it has an excess of governments, fighting over who is in charge.

  2. cue Ron Paul "It's happening!" meme…

    They are one of the few new reactor designs to get this far in terms of licensing, so they have that going for them, but the reactor design itself isn't a huge leap, which is probably why it got this far in licensing.

    One potential roadblock is the need for single operations room/multireactor site licensing to really get the costs down. If they can get that, that clears the way for mass production for multireactor sites, which has scaling benefits.

  3. The used fuel rods have harmed nobody, not even the ones at Fukushima. Used solar panels often include toxic substances & the volumes are much larger

  4. You seem to have forgotten about global warming, Biden's carbon tax, or the fact that the gas industry hasn't made a nickel in ten years. What do you think of the price of gas when it becomes impossible to find suckers to finance the gas ponzi scam?

  5. No they are saying that in 22 years they will have produced 640 reactors. First reactor is supposed to be online in a few years.

    I'm all for SPS's but we aren't there yet and yes the pace of development once government gets involved is pathetic.

  6. The area occupied by a nuke plant is trivial for the amount of power produced. That means you can put them near the demand & don't *need* long power lines.

  7. That is why nuclear is greener than wind & solar. Nuclear replaces fossil. Wind & solar need natural gas plant to turn on when they can't

  8. The plant is not remotely competitive with natural gas nor can it financially or operationally cope with the large power need swings caused by green energy (natural gas plants readily can).

  9. By… 2042. 22 years from now. They may end up employing engineers who haven't even been born yet.

    It's depressing how slowly a technology advances, once the government drops its regulatory blanket on it.

    By 2042, we could have SPS's up and running. SHOULD have SPS's up and running! I don't see this project going anywhere, if they're anticipating a schedule like that; 22 years of financial drain before the first watt is produced? Nothing makes sense financially under a burden like that.

  10. The TVA should order at least 5 GWe for just one of its sites. 

    The extra capacity should be used to produce renewable methanol (eMethanol)– off site. Some of the methanol should be used to replace natural gas at some of the TVA's natural gas electric power facilities turning them into carbon neutral facilities. Natural gas power plants can easily and cheaply be modified to use methanol. 

    And some of the methanol should be converted into gasoline to provide guilt free carbon neutral gasoline for automobiles(eGasoline). 

    The other TVA sites should be used for– other– emerging small nuclear reactors such as those that use fuels derived from spent fuel.

  11. If you put them in the desert, where are you getting your cooling water from?

    Distance could partially be solved by using DC power transmission.

  12. Now all they have to do is spend a billion dollars on the detailed design and find a real customer other than UAMPS. If they had some ham, they could have ham and eggs.

    If they're going to build 80 gigawatts by 2042, then I am going to be a spectacularly rich man by the time I retire in 2046. we all know that's not going to happen.

  13. We really need room temperature superconductors.

    The nuke part doesn't bother me; I just wish we could put the things out in the desert where no one ever has to see them and save the nice green areas for other things.

    Unfortunately, without those superconductors, whatever we do will need to be close to where it will be used.

  14. Oh lol yes something is happening. I forget the figure but NuScale/Fluor was spending something like $5-10 million per month on design, NRC approval, etc.

    There is a lot of PPT slideware for nuclear reactors, NuScale is in the business of making reactors. They have their first customer and a site selected. Nuscale has partnered with Doosan Heavy Industries for manufacturing and they have an equity stake in the company.

    There is significant interest from the UK because NuScale is quite cost competitive there.

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