excalibur
Diamond Member
- Mar 19, 2015
- 17,930
- 33,978
- 2,290
More of the positives that the Trump Administration did.
thefederalist.com
...
The last four years, however, have seen early signs of what might just be a fission renaissance. After being slashed by President Obama in favor of more image-friendly and less efficient sources, the Trump administration has ramped up American investment in nuclear energy.
“When the president took office in 2017, he ordered a review of nuclear energy policy, and he said that he wanted to begin to revive and expand our nuclear energy sector,” Baranwal told The Federalist. “And so he issued an executive order, promoting energy independence and economic growth, and that included the recognition that nuclear energy is a clean baseload power source that’s very important to overcoming our environmental challenges.”
These changes, and the increases in funding that have come with them, have resulted in groundbreaking accomplishments in American nuclear energy that have hardly received the coverage they deserve.
...
This September the design for a Small Modular Reactor (SMR), designed by NuScale Power, gained approval from the federal government. It’s the first such reactor to be approved, ever. Small reactors like NuScale’s offer the possibility of fundamentally changing the economics of nuclear power.
While fission plants pay off in the long run, they have immense upfront costs that other energy sources just don’t experience on the same scale. Today, starting a commercial fission plant is something of an Odyssean task requiring decades of paperwork, miles of land, and billions in investment. These smaller reactors could change all of that.
“They can be factory-built and assembled on site much faster than these larger gigawatt-scale reactors. And so part of what we have seen with the cost overrun and the schedule delays… will not be experienced with SMR or microreactor deployment,” Baranwal said.
...
The last four years, however, have seen early signs of what might just be a fission renaissance. After being slashed by President Obama in favor of more image-friendly and less efficient sources, the Trump administration has ramped up American investment in nuclear energy.
“When the president took office in 2017, he ordered a review of nuclear energy policy, and he said that he wanted to begin to revive and expand our nuclear energy sector,” Baranwal told The Federalist. “And so he issued an executive order, promoting energy independence and economic growth, and that included the recognition that nuclear energy is a clean baseload power source that’s very important to overcoming our environmental challenges.”
These changes, and the increases in funding that have come with them, have resulted in groundbreaking accomplishments in American nuclear energy that have hardly received the coverage they deserve.
...
This September the design for a Small Modular Reactor (SMR), designed by NuScale Power, gained approval from the federal government. It’s the first such reactor to be approved, ever. Small reactors like NuScale’s offer the possibility of fundamentally changing the economics of nuclear power.
While fission plants pay off in the long run, they have immense upfront costs that other energy sources just don’t experience on the same scale. Today, starting a commercial fission plant is something of an Odyssean task requiring decades of paperwork, miles of land, and billions in investment. These smaller reactors could change all of that.
“They can be factory-built and assembled on site much faster than these larger gigawatt-scale reactors. And so part of what we have seen with the cost overrun and the schedule delays… will not be experienced with SMR or microreactor deployment,” Baranwal said.
...
The Nuclear Energy Tech Of The Past Four Years Will Blow Your Mind
Fission energy can change America's power for the better -- and we’re finally seeing progress in revitalizing the field across the country.
thefederalist.com
