A good article on Nuclear and its role in reducing carbon emissions and how governments are skirting the issuse when it comes to going green
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/nuscale ... 18876.htmlNuScale Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. José Reyes sat down with Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita to discuss NuScale's newest small nuclear reactor and what it means for the future of nuclear energy. He also discusses the White House's goal to hit net zero emissions by 2050.
Video Transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: Dr. Jose Reyes, it's good to have you on today. I really appreciate your time.
JOSE REYES: Thanks so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it.
AKIKO FUJITA: Let's start by talking broad picture here. There's a lot of viewers who are just now looking into this new technology around nuclear energy. So in the simplest terms, explain to us how a small modular reactor differs from reactors we have seen built in nuclear power plants that exist today.
JOSE REYES: Oh yeah. The differences are tremendous. You know, you think about the designs from 50 years ago and what we can offer today-- advanced computers modeling a digital INC-- it's a whole different way of building power plants, operating, and maintaining them. So small, modular reactors are kind of the new wave and very innovative in design.
AKIKO FUJITA: And what makes it innovative? Because when you think about the nuclear industry, there's certainly been a lot of questions around not just the safety, but really about cost overrun issues. How does building this on a larger scale and having this template in place-- how does that allow you to scale at a quicker rate, but also a cheaper rate?
JOSE REYES: Right. Yes, so what we've done is we have a reactor vessel which is inside a containment vessel. And they're relatively small-- so about 15 feet in diameter, 70 feet long. But the secret is that it's all built in a factory. So you're doing all your nuclear construction and fabrication in that factory. And then separately, you're doing your civil construction on-site. So it's a parallel construction approach that greatly reduces schedule and cost.
AKIKO FUJITA: Schedule and cost there-- let's talk about where things stand. You've got a plant that you are building out over in Utah. What's the timeline on that right now?
JOSE REYES: So the customer drives the operating decision. So their commercial operation date is currently 2029. That's when they plan to replace some of their coal-fired plants. But NuScale has been preparing for this well in advance. We now have our final design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So we're the first SMR to get that. And we can start delivering modules as early as 2027.
AKIKO FUJITA: You were talking about the cost and scale benefits of this technology, but if you look at the budget right now on that particular project, we've seen it go from $4.2 billion to 6.1 billion. When you look at that, does that go against the argument that you've made about the benefits of pushing forward with SMRs as opposed to what is seen as more traditional nuclear technology?
JOSE REYES: Yeah, no, it's really interesting to note how cost estimates are developed. So right now we're, at a class 3 estimate-- and so that has uncertainty on it. And then we go back to the customer and we inform them, this is what we're estimating in terms of the price that we could provide for you.
They add on top of that, then, their local costs-- the costs for the engineering and things like that. And now we talk to them again and say, well, is this the size plant that you want? One advantage that we have that has not been available in the past is that we can go to four modules six modules, or 12 modules.
And so that, of course, reduces the cost, depending on what they need. And so we're tailoring our design so that it's very responsive to customers, as opposed to what was done in the past. The one size fits all just doesn't work anymore. So we can offer them a four or a six-pack at a much reduced cost.
And we try to meet their not only their capital cost requirements, but also the levelized cost of electricity. So for this first project, they've set a target of 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour. And so that's what we're working towards right now.
AKIKO FUJITA: But how do you address the cost overrun issues or concerns?
JOSE REYES: So one of the-- we've done quite a bit of studying on the cost overruns and what's been done in conventional nuclear power today. So this is very different. This is something that can be built in a factory, shipped by truck, rail, or barge, the individual components, and then installed in a pool. So it's a much simpler construction than in the past.
More companies will come out with even better designs where Nuclear power plants are able to shut down safely and nuclear radation or fallout will be a thing of the past.
