Modular Nuclear Reactor Company Nuscale Gets $40 Million from Japan’s JGC Holdings

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JGC Holdings (Japanese company) has invested $40 million for a roughly 3% stake in NuScale, developing small modular pressure water nuclear reactor. The Japanese group will work with NuScale’s parent, U.S.-based engineering company Fluor, on construction management and other aspects of the Idaho project.

The partners will eventually make similar projects in the Middle East — where JGC boasts a long track record in oil and petrochemical infrastructure — and Southeast Asia.

Conventional 1000 megawatt nuclear plants cost around $10 billion to build using established reactor designs. NuScale’s SMR design — which completed a technical review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in August 2020, costs around $3 billion for more than 900 MW.

The first NuScale Power Module™ will begin generating power in 2029, with the remaining modules coming online for full plant operation by 2030.

At up to 77 MWe (gross), the NuScale Power Module™ is the smallest of the light-water SMRs, broadening its market reach and application to markets that require smaller sizes and for customers who wish to make smaller investments in nuclear power.

NuScale’s small size and simple design eliminates many of the large and complex systems (e.g., pumps, motors, valves, piping) found in today’s nuclear power plants and other SMR designs. As a result, NuScale’s plant is safer, and less expensive to build and operate.

This is the first ever small modular reactor (SMR) to receive U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) design approval, NuScale is bringing the first SMR power plant online in the U.S. this decade. Our SMR technology, the NuScale Power Module™ (module), can generate 25 percent more power at 77 megawatts of electricity (MWe), resulting in a total output of 924 MWe (gross) for their flagship 12-module NuScale power plant. They offer smaller power plant solutions in 4-module (308 MWe) and 6-module (462 MWe) sizes.

SOURCES- Nikkei, Nuscale, Stephen Stapczynski
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

16 thoughts on “Modular Nuclear Reactor Company Nuscale Gets $40 Million from Japan’s JGC Holdings”

  1. Watts Bar was also partially built. So new Gen III+ reactor that is walk away safe vs mostly built Gen III reactor.

    Apples-Oranges

  2. Mars could definitely use some nuclear power. Neverending "waste" heat is a real bonus to a cold world- it keeps a habitat nice and warm (and a "leaky" habitat can act as the last radiator for heat).

    There are other issues and opportunities. Heat dissipation is difficult- you can't just make a cooling pool of water. There is no tangible atmosphere to work with as a heat exchanger.

    There are also upsides. Sodium cooled reactors don't have to worry about oxygen fires because there is no oxygen in the atmosphere.

    Long story short- Mars needs nuclear power because dust storms are a real problem. Getting rid of heat is a problem but liquid metal reactors are simpler in some ways.

  3. I recollect that they want to bring a new reactor module on line one per month so that they are staggered and their refueling periods are also staggered.

  4. There's no reason not to run a nuke plant at 100% capacity. We're already transitioning to electric cars and will need more electricity. The excess energy could go directly to battery recharge.

  6. China started bulding two 1100 MW reactors in Pakistan in 2015 and 2016, for a cost of about $10 billion for the pair. The first began making power last month, and the second is supposed to be finished by the end of the year.

  7. Nuscale claim less than three years from first concrete, though I'm not sure if they mean the whole shebang would be finished, or just the first units producing power. That at least would cut the up-front capital needed – the first unit could start paying off the later ones. China, South Korea and Japan have all proved that they can bring a gigawatt class reactor to power-up in a little over four years, which is about what France and Sweden managed in the eighties. Strong government support, a serious sequential building program, and not letting the likes of Peter Bradford and Greg Jaczko run interference, might be a good recipe.

  8. 'Peter Bradford, a former
    member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission', was only put on the NRC to placate the anti-nukes. He's a descendant of the Rothschild family, a former ally of Ralph Nader, and member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Not that he's a scientist, he's from the Vermont Law School. VLS alumni were prominent in the movement to prematurely close Vermont Yankee reactor, then the State's largest source of non-fossil power.

  9. What is the estimated construction time of a 1 module or 6 module or 12 module nuscale plant vs the current plants under construction in the west?

    I always thought the problem with gen 3 LWRs was construction time, not profitiability once built?

  11. It seems to always be right at 5. Nukes are for heat, they do not work for
    electricity, now with power beaming or H, let alone both together, and
    that is even w/o Space Solar.

  12. 1 NuScale Power Module is capable of generating 77 MWe x 12 = 924 MWe
    Projected Cost: $6.1 billion

    2016 Watts Bar 2 1165 MWe
    Cost $6.8 billion

  13. Nov. 4, 2020"

    Plans to build an innovative new nuclear power plant—and thus revitalize the struggling U.S. nuclear industry—have taken a hit as in recent weeks: Eight of the 36 public utilities that had signed on to help build the plant have backed out of the deal. The withdrawals come just months after the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), which intends to buy the plant containing 12 small modular reactors from NuScale Power, announced that completion of the project would be delayed by 3 years to 2030. It also estimates the cost would climb from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion…"

    if the NuScale plant doesn’t run constantly at full output, it will be
    less efficient and even more expensive to operate, in terms of cost per
    megawatt hour (MWh) of energy, Ramana argues. Peter Bradford, a former
    member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and former chair of
    the state utility commissions in Maine and New York, says renewables
    coupled with short-term storage in batteries would likely be a cheaper

    means to even out the supply.

    "The deal protects UAMPS customers by specifying a maximum cost for electricity from the plant of $55 per MWh, Webb says, which should make it competitive with the future price of electricity from gas. DOE will help ensure that rate, he says, as it recently finalized a plan to bear $1.4 billion of the cost of the plant. “If it’s more than $55 [per MWh] we will not build the plant,” he says…"

  14. This size reactor makes industrial, and central heating district cogeneration more feasible.

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