On the topic of commercial nuclear power, I've been building a small investment position in NuScale Power, a young company (by energy company standards) creating a business around smaller reactors[1]:
"A reactor designed by Oregon-based energy company NuScale Power has become the first small modular reactor design approved for use in the US by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), paving the way for new plants that utilize the reactor. The move wasn’t exactly a surprise, because the design passed its final safety evaluation back in 2020, but it is a crucial step towards actually deploying the technology in the field."
"While some SMRs under development rely on exotic new designs that use molten uranium or thorium salts as a fuel, the NuScale reactor, which has been named VOYGR, is not dramatically different from traditional full-scale ones. It is based on a design developed at Oregon State University in the early 2000s called the 'Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor.'"
"The design consists of a 76-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide cylindrical containment vessel that houses the reactor. Water is passed over a series of uranium fuel rods that generate heat through fission reactions. The heated water then rises up towards steam generators, which use the heat from the water to produce superheated steam. This is then used to drive a turbine that generates electricity."
"Each module is designed to generate 50 megawatts of energy, but the company plans to combine up to 12 SMRs to achieve similar outputs to conventional nuclear plants. The SMRs come with novel safety features designed to prevent the kind of disasters that have hardened public opinion against nuclear power."
We'll have to see how well this bet pays off (it's still VERY early stage, even for a deSPACed publicly traded company), but the chaos around the world that's related to energy is providing a good justification to push down this path.
On the topic of commercial nuclear power, I've been building a small investment position in NuScale Power, a young company (by energy company standards) creating a business around smaller reactors[1]:
"A reactor designed by Oregon-based energy company NuScale Power has become the first small modular reactor design approved for use in the US by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), paving the way for new plants that utilize the reactor. The move wasn’t exactly a surprise, because the design passed its final safety evaluation back in 2020, but it is a crucial step towards actually deploying the technology in the field."
"While some SMRs under development rely on exotic new designs that use molten uranium or thorium salts as a fuel, the NuScale reactor, which has been named VOYGR, is not dramatically different from traditional full-scale ones. It is based on a design developed at Oregon State University in the early 2000s called the 'Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor.'"
"The design consists of a 76-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide cylindrical containment vessel that houses the reactor. Water is passed over a series of uranium fuel rods that generate heat through fission reactions. The heated water then rises up towards steam generators, which use the heat from the water to produce superheated steam. This is then used to drive a turbine that generates electricity."
"Each module is designed to generate 50 megawatts of energy, but the company plans to combine up to 12 SMRs to achieve similar outputs to conventional nuclear plants. The SMRs come with novel safety features designed to prevent the kind of disasters that have hardened public opinion against nuclear power."
We'll have to see how well this bet pays off (it's still VERY early stage, even for a deSPACed publicly traded company), but the chaos around the world that's related to energy is providing a good justification to push down this path.
[1] https://singularityhub.com/2022/08/05/the-first-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-design-was-just-approved-by-us-regulators/