The specific reactor approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is built by NuScale, an Oregon-based energy company that has been working on its design for over a decade. The reactor design is only about 65 feet long and generates 50 megawatts of power, and comes with enough fuel to last an entire year. The reactor can be built and fueled in a factory, shipped on a train or truck, and shipped back to be refueled.
The first such reactor is scheduled to be built in Idaho sometime in the mid-2020s, and will serve as a demonstration of the tech’s capabilities. If everything goes well, we could see small reactors taking the place of fossil fuel plants very soon.
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