U.S. is Only 3 Years Behind China in Nuclear Reactors Courtesy of New Approval
Jason Mick (Blog) - December 23, 2011 7:09 PM
Construction on new designs should begin within weeks; ultra-safe Gen. III+ reactors could be live by 2016
When it comes to alternative energy, wind and solar power are nice ideas and certainly worthy of research, but they remain much more expensive than nuclear power. Nuclear power, however, has suffered mightily under the misconceptions of a poorly informed public that mistakenly believes that modern reactors designs are as failure and toxic waste prone as legacy designs.
Protests and lawsuits have blocked the construction and licensing of clean modern reactors, and then to add insult to injury critics tend to turn around and throw these cost overruns they created back at nuclear proponents, complaining that nuclear power is prone to "cost overruns".
I. NRC Approves First Gen. III+ Reactor Design
Well the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing its best to restore some sanity to the power market, making one of its biggest moves in recent years, unanimously approving [PDF] a new reactor design and setting in a new faster, streamlined approval process.
The new design is the AP1000 by Westinghouse Electric Comp. LLC (a licensee of Westinghouse Licensing Corp., which in turn is loosely a subsidiary of CBS Corp. (CBS)). The AP1000 is a 1,154 MW "advanced" third generation reactor design (often dubbed Gen. III+).
It originally won NRC approval back in 2006, but then in 2008 the NRC implemented a series of strict regulations [source] requiring that reactors be designed to sustain a direct strike from a commercial (i.e. large cargo or passenger) aircraft. The initial design, which included a concrete enclosed containment vessel, was deemed unsatisfactory as it could crack under the impact.
Westinghouse went back to the drawing board, adding a steel plate enclosure, which they argued would counteract the collision and keep the reactor safe.
<MUCH MORE>
